


Double Trouble

by lorneytunes, OxfordPictionary



Category: Transformers: Prime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-16 20:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9288008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorneytunes/pseuds/lorneytunes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordPictionary/pseuds/OxfordPictionary
Summary: Twins aren't uncommon on Cybertron; in fact, Optimus Prime has encountered a few before. After settling in Jasper, Nevada, however, he comes across a pair of twin humans who will wreak a whole new kind of havoc for the Autobots.Meet Esther Macaulay, the impulsive paramedic who likes to take selfies with her patients' injuries, and her sister Heather, who regularly cleans up Esther's messes when she's not working as a computer programmer. Between them, the two sisters will wreak enough havoc to completely unbalance the power struggle between Decepticons and Autobots.





	1. Prologue

When Esther arrived on the scene she was… let’s say ‘shocked’ by the boy’s injuries. If you want the truth, however, she was impressed. He had a pretty deep gash down most of his lower leg. He didn’t look all that phased, either. Oh, he winced a little whenever he moved slightly but that was about it. She’d seen grown men bawl their eyes out over less.

“What got you?” she asked, with what she hoped was a comforting smile on her face.

The boy shrugged. “Long story.”

“Aww, come on,” she prodded him and he winced, “you’re ruining the only perk of this job.”

She leant in and examined his wound more closely, checking for any sort of debris left inside or any other details she should report to the hospital when they arrived. Satisfied it was clear, she took another look at the scene…

When she’d gotten there she’d bypassed her training, which called for her to check their surroundings for danger before offering aid, and run straight for the biggest injury. It turned out to be the only one, but that was beside the point. Now that she had assessed it, she could take a proper look at what she should have scanned carefully earlier.

They were on the side of the main road outside Jasper. There wasn’t any debris around but there were what looked like burn marks on the road, and a whole heap of criss-crossed tire tracks.

“This wasn’t a motorbike accident, was it?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. 

Thrill-seeker she may have been, but she couldn’t stand people who acted like idiots on the road. She looked over his clothes. He had a bland, grey helmet on the ground next to him, but aside from that, he was just in everyday clothing. If he  _ had _ come off the bike then she wasn’t surprised that his injury was so severe.

_ Amateur, _ she muttered, mentally.

“You could say that…” the boy said suddenly, answering her earlier question.

“All right, then, but what would  _ you _ say happened?”

Puzzles. Another thing she didn’t like.

When he didn’t answer, she shoved gauze into his wound hard. He winced again, but that was the extent of the reaction she got. Trying again, Esther kept packing the wound firmly with gauze until she got to the binding stage. She pulled hard on the bandages, wrapping them as tightly as she could and ensuring she was as forceful as possible.

“You do know what you’re doing could be considered torture, right?” the boy asked.

“Not unless it’s successful,” she told him. “What’s your name, anyway? You can at least tell me that, right?”

He sighed. “I might as well. My mom works for the hospital, after all.”

“Oh?” Esther raised an eyebrow. 

“I’m Jack,” he said. “Jack Darby.”

Esther laughed maniacally. “Oh, I know your mum. You’re toast.”

Finished with his wound, she stood up and offered him a hand.

“You shouldn’t need carried around,” she said. “It’ll hurt, but you can walk with just a bit of help.”

She scanned him up and down.

“I don’t think you’re going to lose the leg.” She grinned. “But your mum is going to lose her shit.”

He took her hand. “You really are a sadist, you know that?”

She just swung his arm over her shoulder and helped him limp to the ambulance.

“What do you want us to do about your bike?” she asked.

“Oh, that’s fine!” Jack said hurriedly. “I’ll just get my mom to come get it or something.”

“Where’s she going to put it?” she reminded him. “It’s not like she’s just going to walk out here and ride it home. She’ll have to take her car. It’s not going to fit.”

Jack laughed and rubbed the back of his neck.

“It’s nice you’re being so concerned and all, but my bike will be fine. She can take care of herself.”

Like his attitude wasn’t weird enough already… There was either someone else involved here who stood to take responsibility for Jack’s injuries if she was found out, or Jack had a magic motorcycle.

Esther  _ really _ hoped he had a magic motorcycle.

Making a snap decision she pulled out her phone, took a few steps backwards, and photographed the scene – bike included. Then she quickly shoved her phone away in case Jack tried to grab it.

“Whuh… what was that for?” he asked.

“Gotta document the scene,” she said cheerily. “Okay, boyo, let’s get going.”

She shut the doors to the back and headed around to the front. Normally she would have had a partner to drive while she sat in the back looking after the patient, but staff was short in a small town like Jasper and seeing as the guy had reported the accident himself and sounded fine, she figured it was safe enough to just take an ambulance and go. She’d still probably get in trouble later, but she could worry about that when it happened. 

First stop, congratulations from June Darby. 

Second stop, finding out what the hell her son was hiding.

 

As they drove towards the hospital Esther happened to glance at her wing mirror. She was sure she saw a black motorcycle for a second before it blipped out of view.

“Strange…” she muttered to herself.

“Everything okay up there?” Jack asked.

Esther ignored him, scanning back and forth between both of her mirrors now, hoping to catch another glimpse of the bike. Looking back at the road in front of her, she made only a flick back at her wing mirrors as she turned the corner towards the hospital. There. The bike was definitely behind them.

“Wow, Jack, I never even realised you’d called your mum already…” she said slowly.

“What?” the boy looked extremely panicked. “I didn’t.” 

He cursed under his breath after that but she couldn’t make out what he said.

“Jack, is there something I need to know about that crash? Something that might get someone into trouble?”

“No, no, everything’s fine!” The frantic way in which he waved his hands was anything but reassuring.

In a snap decision she slammed on the brakes, dived into the back and wrestled Jack still. It’s best not to ask why she had a rope handy.


	2. Dumber Than a Shoe

You’d think I’d be used to my sister’s antics by now. We’ve been alive  _ exactly _ the same amount of time, except for a few extra minutes in her favour. Despite sharing a birthday, however, we couldn’t be less alike sometimes. Like, for example, when she considers bringing her shit to my doorstep a good idea.

Deciding that closing off to her frantic shouts from the front garden wasn’t going to work this time, I stepped out the front door. Esther was standing at the wide-open back doors of an ambulance, which was parked haphazardly at best. The front half had mounted the curb and buried its front wheels in my lawn while the back half stuck slightly out of the parking space onto the road.

To be perfectly honest, this wasn’t too much of an unusual sight. She wasn’t the most amazing driver so she frequently tore up my garden with her lazy or just plain imbecilic parking. Plus, she was pretty much allowed to use the ambulance as her own personal transport so long as she responded to any calls that came in.

No, that wasn’t what got me. It was the muffled complaints from  _ inside _ the ambulance. Esther wasn’t generally known for bringing patients home with her. Usually a selfie with their injury was enough for her.

“What have you DONE?” I called out to her as I ran towards the ambulance.

I rounded the back corner and looked inside. 

“YOU KIDNAPPED A MINOR?”

“You make this seem way more  dramatic than it is.”

I stared at my sister in disbelief.

“Help me get him inside, would you?” she said, grabbing him by the shoulders. “I need to interrogate him.”

He looked at me, eyes wide and pleading for help. Suddenly there was the sound of engines, more than one, very loud and headed our way. His eyes widened further but his expression was suddenly a lot more hopeful. 

I grabbed his hips, trying to avoid what looked like an injured leg, and helped carry him inside. We dumped him down on the couch in my front room and I rounded on Esther.

“Why did you kidnap a child?”

An indignant noise from the couch.

“Shut up. Esther, why?”

“He has a magic motorbike,” she hissed.

I stared at her for a few moments, completely in stasis. Then, almost in slow motion, my hand moved up to my head and I buried my face in it. I curled my fingers in towards my forehead as I let out an exasperated sigh.

“No really,” she said. “He was talking about it like it was a person after he had a crash.”

“Do me a favour and go over the words you just said to me and check them for things that make you look like an idiot.”

Esther looked crestfallen. “What? What’s wrong with it?”

“A lot of people give their vehicles names and genders, Esther, we call them enthusiasts.” The sound of engines became louder and seemed a hell of a lot closer. “And sometimes, those enthusiasts belong to gangs.”

The kid started rolling around on the couch making loud, muffled noises.

I peeked through my curtains, expecting to see a whole bunch of bikers outside my house. What I saw instead was a bike, a sportscar, a large, armoured vehicle and… a truck?

“Who the fuck are these guys?” I hissed.

I pulled the oversized band-aid off the kid’s mouth. “Who are these guys?” I demanded.

He looked around and sighed. “Look,” he said, “I can’t tell you. But if you let me go, they won’t do anything to you. They’re just worried about me.”

I looked at my sister. “Understandable…”

Outside I heard several clicks and whirring noises before a deep voice commanded, “No, Arcee!”

“R.C.? What kind of nickname is that?” I looked out the window and leapt backwards. “Jesus Christ!”

The bike was gone. In its place was a - I never thought I’d get to say these words - giant robot.

“She’s friendly!” the kid shouted. “Don’t worry, she’s friendly.”

“ _ He has a magic bike? _ ” I said, looking at my sister. “Bit of an understatement there.”

She grinned nervously and shrugged.

“Well now what do we do? Do you really trust this kid when he says they won’t hurt us?”

Heavy footsteps approached us and I was starting to get really worried about the safety of my roof and the likelihood of its continued attachment to the rest of my house.

Esther shrugged again. “His mum’s pretty nice.”

“Oh great, so you not only kidnapped a kid, you kidnapped a kid you  _ know _ ?”

“I’m not a kid, and I don’t know her. She works with my mom at the hospital,” the kid said.

“We could get arrested over this,” I said, glaring at my sister.

The kid struggled into an upright position, wincing a few times, and then looked at me seriously.

“I already told you,” he said, “if you let me go that’ll be the end of it. Believe me, you’re not going to get arrested.”

“Your giant robot friend have a problem with the police?” I asked, starting to put two and two together.

The shaking stopped.

I ran to the door and threw it open. “Don’t break my house!” I screamed hysterically at the robot.

“Then give me back my partner,” it said in a female voice.

“Ew,” I said.

“I ship it,” said Esther.

“Shut up,” I said.

“Not like that,” said the robot, looking taken aback. 

She glanced back at the vehicles parked haphazardly in my street. She seemed to be considering what to say.

“Jack is very important to us,” she eventually decided on. “Just give him back and we won’t hurt you.”

I looked at my sister, and then the kid, and then the robot, and then my sister again.

“I think you’ve got your proof about the kid’s motorcycle. Just untie him and let him go.”

She frowned but complied.

“Put me in this situation again, though,” I warned, “and the robot can have you.”

“Believe me,” said the robot, “this won’t be happening again.”

I looked over at the couch where Jack was now fully untied. Esther was standing with her arms folded, a childishly stubborn look on her face. I sighed and went to help him limp  to the door.   


“Does he need to go to the hospital?” I asked her.   


She ignored me.   


“ _ Does he need to go to the hospital?” _ I said again, with a much more lethal edge to it this time.   


“Yes,” she finally admitted. “He needs stitches.”   


I looked back at the robot. “Can your friends get him to the hospital?”   


She looked back at them. “Oh, we can get him there. We just might have trouble getting him inside.”   


“Why? Are they wanted criminals or something?”   


She looked at me and then at the vehicles. “They’re…”   


The truck revved suddenly, as if in warning.   


Her mouth closed again.   


I let out a final, exasperated sigh and hefted Jack out the front door towards the lawn.   


“Whatever,” I said. “There’s a kid here who’s hurt. Whatever freaky shit is going on with you guys, getting him fixed up is my first priority.”    


I rounded on my sister who was now in the doorway behind us.    


“It should have been  _ yours _ ,” I said, “but you were too busy playing conspiracy theories.”   


“Which turned out to be true!” she yelled after us.   


Initially, I made for my own car - a blue Mazda 2 with worn paint in some places and rust spots in others. Then I remembered my driveway was blocked.   


“Can you at least give me a lift, then?” I asked.   


Both passenger-side doors to the armoured car swung open. I looked back at the robot. She nodded.   


The truck gave another, quieter rev, still not sounding like its driver was happy with the idea.   


I helped Jack limp across the now torn up lawn to the armoured car and strapped him into the back. Then I headed for the front and hopped into the passenger seat. It wasn’t until I fastened my seatbelt that I realised there was no driver, but by then the car had already taken off.

 

It was a few blocks before I’d regained enough composure to say, “You’re a robot too, then.”   


“Yup,” said a rumbling voice from, I assumed, the car’s stereo.   


I sank into my seat. “Really not what I had planned for my evening.”   


Jack laughed from the back. “Tell me about it.”   


I looked over my shoulder at him.    


“I’m really sorry…” I said.   


He sighed and shrugged. “A day in the life, I guess.”   


I looked back out the front window. We rode in silence for a few more blocks before my curiosity got the better of me.   


“So, how  _ did _ you get hurt? Motorbike get the hiccups?”   


Jack laughed. “If only…” His head snapped towards the screen in the centre of the stereo system. “But, uh… I’m not sure if I can tell you any more than you already know.”   


“Yeah, leave that to Optimus,” the car said.   


“Optimus?”   


“The truck,” said Jack.   


“How many freaking disguised robots are there in Jasper?”   


I pressed my nose to the glass, eyeing up every car I saw.   


“Don’t worry,” rumbled the car, “we’ll introduce you to the whole team later.”   


“You trust me that much already?” I asked, returning my focus to the car’s interior.   


“I know a good spark when I see one. Not so sure about that other girl, though…”    


The car’s interior lights dimmed and I wasn’t sure if it was in anger or just mild annoyance. Either way, I was pretty sure it was the robot equivalent of narrowing his eyebrows.   


“Uh, Spark?” I asked.   


“He means heart,” Jack offered. “That’s the Autobot equivalent.”   


“Autobots, huh? Looks like I have a lot of new vocab to learn. Catchy name, though.”   


I looked back at the car’s screen. “But by the way, that other girl? She’s my twin sister.”

 

It didn’t take much longer before we reached the hospital and I had to help Jack limp through the front doors into emergency. I couldn’t help noticing Esther’s ambulance parked out front.   


“There he is!” called a familiar voice from the nurse’s desk. “Told you the silly goose would turn up.”   


“Jack!”    


A woman who could only be his mother ran towards us.   


“What were you thinking, leaving the ambulance like that?”   


“What?” Jack craned to see around his mother’s smothering shoulders.   


I followed his gaze to the desk where Esther was giving him an evil smile.   


“Uh, well…” he said, “I guess she just freaked me out a bit.”   


His mum groaned. “Well, at least you’re safe now. Let’s get stitches in your leg.”   


She stood up and looked at me. “Thank you so much for helping my son.”   


Then she shook my hand and introduced herself. “I’m June Darby. You must be Esther’s sister.”   


“Heather, yes I am,” I said, shaking back before letting her go.

 

I got to hang around while Jack was getting fixed up, giving the excuse that I wanted to make sure he was okay. Esther wasn’t so lucky and got another call right after I arrived. His mum seemed to buy the story Esther had fed him about him running out of her ambulance when she stopped at some traffic lights, and mine that I’d found him sat at the side of the road not far from there.   


In the private, little examination room she finished his stitches and then covered up his wound with an adhesive patch that must have looked painfully familiar to him. I stifled a giggle.   


“There’s just one thing, though,” Jack’s mum said once she was done.   


My smile froze on my face.  _ What one thing? _   


“Didn’t I see Bulkhead parked just outside after you came in?”   


“Mom!” Jack hissed.   


Before she could apologise, I let out my own exclamation. “She  _ knows _ ?!”   


“I might not always approve of the trouble they get my son into…” June glared at Jack. “But I do know about the…  _ unusual _ company he keeps.”   


She smiled at me. “I take it you’re the most recent addition.”   


“You have no idea how recent.”   


“At least they’re finding people  _ above _ the legal age now.”   


June handed her son a pair of crutches.   


“You’ll be staying off that bike until your leg heals, young man. You’ll just have to get a ride with Miko or Raf from now on.”   


Jack looked frustrated, but when he looked down at the crutches and flexed the knee of his injured leg a little, he seemed to accept his fate.   


June turned to me now. “Could you see him home for me? I’ve got a shift to finish.”   


When I nodded, she left the room.   


I held the door for Jack as he limped through on his new crutches.   


“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do when we get there, kiddo.”

 

Once outside, I was about to help Jack into Bulkhead’s back seat again when I was told to put him in the front.   


“Where am I going to sit?” I asked.   


“Your flight’s been upgraded,” came a female voice from Jack’s bike.    


I looked around to see someone riding it. Studying it for more than a few minutes, however, revealed the figure for what it was. The hologram flickered every so often.   


“Uh…” I said, confused.   


The hologram twitched its head towards another vehicle out on the street that I hadn’t noticed until now. The big rig from in front of my house. Although, he didn’t seem to travel with a trailer, I noticed.   


I approached warily, although I was unsure why; I’d hopped into Bulkhead like it was a complete non-issue. Maybe it was the size of him. (I was sure this one was a guy.) The massive truck was very imposing. I mean, most of us who can drive almost shit themselves every time we have to pass a truck on the freeway, but this guy was something else entirely.   


As I got closer, I heard the sound of a door opening for me, but it wasn’t on the passenger side like my trip to the hospital. I didn’t have a feeling I’d need to drive (which was good, because there was no way my license - or my previous experience – covered driving a truck) but it still felt like a pretty big deal going around to the driver’s side.   


I strapped myself in once the door was closed, even though I was pretty sure I saw the seatbelt give a suspicious twitch just before I grabbed it. These guys were far better equipped for kidnapping than my hot-headed sister, it seemed.   


The deep voice I’d heard coming from outside my house earlier chose that moment to say, “Autobots, roll out.”   


I froze in shock just as we all took off at the fastest legal speed down the main road. Great, now I’d probably have whiplash.   


The big guy seemed to realise he’d put me on edge.   


“My apologies,” he said, actually sounding a little embarrassed. “I am not accustomed to carrying passengers.”   


“And you are…?” I said, slowly regaining my ability to perform any sort of basic function.   


“I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots.”   


_ My flight got upgraded and a half,  _ I thought to myself.   


“Nice to meet you, Optimus,” I said, “I’m Heather.”   


I was all too aware I sounded like something out of a cartoon, but that was the best I could come up with. How often do you have to introduce yourself to the leader of a bunch of robotic aliens while he’s transformed into a truck and giving you a lift? Me, I’ve only done it once. I’d enjoy a do-over, though.   


There was silence for a little while and I wondered if he was figuring out what to say. I decided to help him.   


“So, the others said you’d be the best one to explain the situation to me,” I attempted.   


“We are robotic life forms from the planet Cybertron. Our purpose here on Earth is to protect your planet from our enemies, the Decepticons,” Optimus told me. “The war between our two sides destroyed our own planet, we cannot allow it to destroy yours.”   


“That’s good. I can imagine a lot of people would be upset if the planet was destroyed because of a war that isn’t even ours.”   


“Indeed,” agreed Optimus, not seeming to catch the joke. Or ignoring it. Either way. “However, our presence on this planet has remained a secret until now, and must continue to do so.”   


I nodded, although I wasn’t sure if he could tell.   


“You can trust me,” I added, just in case.   


“I believe we are right to place our trust in you, Heather,” the big bot confirmed. “You showed great kindness tonight when you assisted Jack.”   


There was something hanging on the end of his sentence, though; a change in tone that told me exactly where this was going.   


“You’re just worried about my sister,” I said, finishing the thought for him.   


“Kidnapping an innocent to interrogate them is not an action that typically engenders trust.”   


I scratched my head awkwardly. “Well, you’re right there,” I said. “To be honest, though, Esther’s just a bit impulsive. She might takes things to extremes sometimes but… I find  it hard to believe you’ve never come across someone else who acts before they think.”   


Optimus seemed to think this over and I let him. I didn’t want to find out what might happen if they decided they couldn’t trust Esther.   


“You are right,” he said eventually, “your assessment reminds me of another youth in our care - Miko.”   


“Is she underage, too?” I asked sceptically.   


“Regrettably, yes,” he admitted. “Her discovery of our secret, along with Jack and another human child, Rafael, was unintended… but they remain under our protection.”   


I considered everything he’d said. “So, let me see if I’ve got everything… You’re alien robots from another planet, you’re here to fight your evil enemies, and we’ve got to keep it all a secret.”   


“Those are the basics, yes,” Optimus confirmed. “The details will come with time. For now, we have arrived.”   


I looked outside and didn’t recognise the house we were at. It had to be Jack’s, then.   


I climbed out of the truck as I said, “Thank you, Optimus.”   


Then I headed over to see if Jack was all right and helped him inside.    


Once I checked he had everything he needed and made sure he agreed to lock the doors and stay inside for the rest of the night, I headed outside again. The Autobots had all headed off somewhere, but I spotted the yellow Urbana parked on the street. It flashed its lights in greeting.   


I hopped into the passenger side.    


“So, who are you, then?” I asked.   


There was a bunch of beeps in response.   


“Uh, what?”   


More beeping. I sat silently for a moment, thinking about it. The bot made a disappointed noise.   


“I was just trying to work out what you said, give me a minute.”   


I set my programmer’s mind to work.   


The bot beeped again.   


“Yes, I can understand you! Now shut up and let me- Oh…”   


After we finished laughing I tried again. “So, your name was?”   


An excited sentence full of beeps, bloops and whirring noises.   


“Nice to meet you, too, Bumblebee.”


	3. Humans Multiply

It was very late, but away from the loud noises that had been following me around all evening I slipped easily into sleep. I dreamed of giant robots chasing me, falling off cliffs, my sister setting things I liked on fire… generally nightmarish stuff. A slamming door jerked me awake. I swung upwards from the couch into a sitting position and stared around me, ready to dodge any giant, robotic feet I might encounter.   


“I can’t believe you went off with the robots without me!” Esther shouted at me from the doorway.   


I rubbed my bleary eyes. “ _ What? _ ”   


“I said…” She moved closer before bending down next to my ear. “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WENT OFF WITH THE ROBOTS WITHOUT ME!”   


Ears ringing, I collapsed backwards into the couch again.   


Seemingly having let out all her hurt feelings, she plopped down onto my stomach and asked me one hundred questions at once.   


“So what were they like? What were their names? Do they have any cool powers? Where are they from? Why are they here? Do we get to join them now? Are they going to kill us to keep us quiet?”   


I tried to remember all the questions she’d asked so far.   


“The green armoured car is called Bulkhead and he’s pretty friendly but he didn’t say much. Their leader is called Optimus Prime and he’s got that scary, commanding leader voice that makes you never want to disappoint him.    


He gave me a lift to Jack’s house while he told me they’re alien robots called Autobots, they’re from Cybertron and they’re protecting us from a war that’s spilled onto our planet. He also told me Jack isn’t the only human who hangs around with them. There’s two other kids – Raf and Miko.   


Then I got a lift from a bot called Bumblebee who speaks in bleeps and bloops but I sort of managed to figure out what he was saying. He said he’d come by and pick me up tomorrow afternoon after he picks up Raf from school. Then they’ll explain more.   


Optimus seems to have decided to trust you for now…”

Esther seemed satisfied. Rather than get off, however, she decided to use me as a pillow.   


“Esther… get off.”   


“But I love you.”   


“Get off and let me sleep. If you want to stay here then go use my bed.”   


There was a tense moment where I wondered if I was going to have to smack her one, but then she finally got off and wandered through to my bedroom.   


“Good night!” she called in an eerie, singsong voice.   


I closed my eyes and got back to my nightmares.

 

When I woke up the next day it was already 11am. Esther was making bacon (Although I don’t know where she got it from because I don’t usually eat bacon.) and brought me back to the world of the living by offering me some. Deciding I wasn’t going to turn down a free breakfast, I nodded sleepily and trudged over to the table.   


“How come you’re not at work?” I asked after I’d downed a few gulps of orange juice to clear my throat.   


“I’m on evening again,” she told me before cracking a few eggs into the pan.   


I wrinkled my nose, hoping my bacon wasn’t in there with them. Once they were crackling away, however, she left them to cook while she brought me over a plate. I ate quietly, wondering how I was going to survive the next few hours until Bumblebee came by to pick me up.  _ Us _ up, I supposed. There was no way Esther would let me go alone. I didn’t want to go alone, either, I just wasn’t sure how happy Bumblebee would be about giving her a lift.

 

In the end, I spent those hours getting myself ready, looking nice. I took a long shower, bothered to blow-dry my hair for once instead of letting it air dry, spent forever picking out the best ‘Meeting the Autobots’ outfit, put on make-up, took off the make-up and nursed a throbbing eyeball, caved in and asked Esther for help with my make-up, and then lost half my lipstick eating an apple for an afternoon snack. I’d just finished re-applying it when the doorbell rang.   


“How do I look?” I asked my sister.    


“You look fine,” she told me dismissively, “but how did the robot ring the doorbell?”   


I opened the door to find a kid about half my height standing there. He had brown hair, glasses, and a nervous expression on his face.   


“Raf?” I asked.   


He seemed to relax. Just a little…   


“Hi…”   


“Come on, Esther, let’s go!”   


I stepped outside and placed an easy hand on Raf’s shoulder as I guided him back towards Bumblebee. He kept glancing back behind us until Esther strode out of the house in knee-high black Converses, short shorts, a black, sleeveless shirt and a pair of sunglasses.   


She gave him her best pout. I’m sure she was winking under the sunnies, too, but I was also pretty sure she hadn’t remembered nobody could see.   


Bumblebee showed his opinion of the extra passenger with a few unhappy beeps and a slammed door when Esther got close.   


“ _ Bumblebee _ …” I warned him.   


He caved, saying something about keeping an eye on her (and adjusting his rear-view mirror to prove it), before unlocking the door to let her in. He didn’t extend the courtesy of opening it for her, but she took it in stride – opening the door and sliding into the leather seats in one smooth motion. All this despite the fact that Bumblebee was a two-door car, so she had to squeeze in behind Raf’s seat to end up next to me.   


I rolled my eyes and reminded her to put on a seatbelt.   


“In a car that drives itself? You’re no fun…”   


“Remember that this car has enemies. Look what happened to Jack.”   


Bumblebee let out a series of beeps.   


“What?” said Esther.   


“He said that was a one-off incident and that it’s way safer in here than on a bike,” I told her.   


Raf looked at me from the passenger seat.   


“It is so weird having someone else around who can understand Bee like I can.”   


“Can’t the other bots understand him?” I asked.   


“Well, yeah, but whenever another human’s around I usually have to translate.”   


“I guess you can have a break whenever I’m around, then,” I smiled.   


He smiled back. I was happy that he seemed to be warming up to me. I was going to need all the friendship points I could get from these guys if I had any hope of getting them to cool off over Esther’s attempted kidnapping. Or… successful kidnapping, I guess.

 

Bumblebee drove us to the edge of town. When we reached a T intersection, however, he kept going. My whole body froze as we headed straight for a rock wall.   


“Uh… you might want to stop,” Esther said.   


Raf laughed. “Just wait…”   


A section of the rock face suddenly slid down into the ground. For a moment we could see a pair of metal doors behind it as we slipped through the widening gap. Then we headed down a driveway which, surprisingly, had lane markings on it. After only a minute, we were pulling into a central chamber.   


A series of large platforms lay before us, with staircases leading up to them; an even larger set of computers created a semi-circle in front. A white Autobot stood at the computers, pressing buttons and generally giving the impression of being busy. On one of the upper areas I could see Jack sitting on a couch with what looked to be a girl about the same age. His crutches sat leaning against the railing. The two kids seemed to be… watching TV together.   


Bumblebee opened his doors and Raf, Esther and I hopped out. Then he transformed.   


I might have seen Jack’s motorcycle in her robot mode when she’d been threatening the safety of my roof the previous night, but I’d never seen the stages in between. With a series of whirring noises and rearranging parts, Bumblebee rose to full robotic height. It was like he’d just stood up from a crouching position.   


I looked around the rest of the room. In total, there were three Autobots present. Bumblebee, who’d bought us here, the white robot standing at the control panel, and a hefty, green robot leaning over the railing to watch TV with Jack and, I assumed, Miko. I guessed that last one was my ride from the night before - Bulkhead.   


Esther was looking around, too. Her eyes narrowed as she examined the white robot.   


“Do you turn into an ambulance?” she asked.   


He looked down. “ _ More of them? _ ” he said, sounding exasperated.   


Bulkhead let out a rumbling laugh that sounded like a landslide. “Haven’t you heard, Ratchet? Humans multiply.”   


The kids all laughed, too, and I took that to mean this was some sort of in joke.   


I smiled at him nervously and waved.   


Esther just stood there, arms folded, waiting for her question to be answered.   


“Well?”   


Ratchet looked flustered for a second before he shook his head, muttered, “Yes, I do,” and went back to work.   


I shrugged, assuming this was the best we were going to get out of him.   


A beeping not unlike a ringtone sounded and a picture of a robot’s face flashed up on one of the large, green screens above the workstation.   


“Ratchet, we are ready to return. Prepare the ground bridge.”    


Optimus’s voice filtered through from somewhere as a soundwave wobbled about next to the picture.   


Before I could analyse the situation any further, a swirling, green portal opened to my right. I looked around and saw an enormous robot walking through. At his side was the female bot from the night before. She only came up to his waist.   


The closer the two robots got the further I tilted my head back as I watched Optimus. I was probably going to get a cramp soon. Luckily for me, and also slightly unluckily as it sent my heart into overdrive, he bent down on one knee when he got close enough and lowered his face until it was in front of mine.   


“Heather…” he said in that venerable, yet commanding voice, “it is nice to meet you face to face this time.”   


A series of garbled noises came from my throat instead of speech.   


Optimus looked concerned. He turned to the rest of the room and said, “Has something happened to her vocal processors?”   


I heard laughter from the rest of the Autobots. Obviously they were far more aware of the effect of their leader’s presence on people than he was.   


That’s when Esther rocked up beside me. “I’m Esther, who are you? What do you turn into? Is this all the robots there are? Why are you hiding in a big rock? What was that portal? Can humans go through it? Where does it lead to?”   


Unsurprisingly, Optimus took this opportunity to back off a little. Actually, a lot. Before I knew it he was standing up and heading off down a side corridor.   


“I’m sure Ratchet will be happy to answer your questions, Esther.”   


I glared at my sister as the other Autobots laughed again. “Great, you even scare off giant robots.”   


I cast a casual glance at Optimus Prime’s retreating back in case he’d heard and was offended, but he didn’t seem to react.

 

After Optimus left, Esther continually pestered Ratchet with her questions. First the same ones she’d asked Optimus, but then she became more interested in what he was doing. He tried to fob her off with off-handed comments about this or that, but I talk to her plenty about my work with computers. She’s also pretty intelligent, despite her hare-brained schemes, so she was able to latch on to parts of what he’d said and extrapolate from there. And when in doubt? She’d call me in.   


Ratchet seemed pleasantly surprised the first time she did that. So did Raf. After our arrival he’d clambered up on top of one of the consoles and started working alongside Ratchet on his laptop. Eventually the tech talk caught my interest too much and I excused myself from the couch next to Jack and Miko and headed down to the computers. I was surprised to learn that they were running on human technology, although it made more sense when they pointed out their hideout was converted from an old military base. Still, it made me laugh to think of Autobots trying to use Windows 7.   


I joined Raf on top of the console, although being much bigger than him and too inflexible to find sitting cross-legged comfortable, I had to sit with my legs hanging off the side, lest I block some of Ratchet’s workspace.   


“So, what are  _ you _ up to?” I asked Raf, attempting to draw the attention away from his Autobot counterpart for a bit.   


“Replacing pictures of the Autobots that people have posted online with funny gifs,” he told me, pointing to his screen as he deleted a picture of Bumblebee’s car form and replaced it with a dancing monkey.   


Esther was suddenly next to us with her phone out.    


“Ooh, let me help!” she cried out.   


“You know how to hack, too?” Raf asked, baffled.   


“No, but I have a whole heap of gifs you can use. Here, put up this one of Castiel.”   


Good thing Raf’s laptop was equipped with Bluetooth. Although I was a little annoyed that Esther had managed to immediately hijack my diversion. I stood up on the top of the console, stepped politely over Raf and focused back on what Ratchet was doing instead.   


“Don’t tell me your job involves pictures of cats, too,” I said, smiling.   


“Thankfully not,” Ratchet said. “I’m performing a routine scan for unusual energy signatures.”   


“Which would indicate?”   


“Well, anything,” he told me. “A new Autobot or Decepticon arriving on Earth, an energon deposit, a hidden weapon being uncovered… I need to find something before I can investigate further and narrow down the possibilities. Then we send out a team to investigate once we have an idea of what they might find.”   


“Makes sense,” I said, satisfied.   


Ratchet looked surprised that I left it at that. I caught a secret smile too, though.

We kept on like that for a few more hours. If Ratchet started doing anything different, I asked him about it, and he seemed happy to explain it to me. Especially seeing as he didn’t need to dumb it down. I caught him testing me a couple of times, so I gathered he was used to not being understood. I could relate.

 

Just as the various other Bots were getting ready to take their charges home, a signal flashed up on Ratchet’s screen. A beeping noise followed it.    


“It looks like an artefact,” Ratchet announced.   


Optimus reappeared so fast I wondered if he had teleportation abilities I didn’t know about.    


“Where is the signal located?” he asked.    


“It looks like…”    


The screen flickered as a wireframe of the Earth enlarged, spun, and zoomed to where the signal was coming from. I recognised the little island it was showing us.    


“…Loch Ness,” Ratchet finished.    


“Arcee, Bulkhead, come with me,” Optimus commanded. “Bumblebee, take the children home.”   


A portal opened in the same place as before. The group transformed at the same time and drove inside it at speed. They were almost out of view as Miko suddenly took off at a run. I hadn’t even noticed her move down to the ground level.   


Figuring she should definitely not be going along for the trip if big, bad robots might be involved, I ran after her, planning to tackle her as soon as I got close enough.   


“Miko!” I shouted, hoping to slow her down, or at least let Optimus and the others know they were being followed.    


“Hey, I wanna come, too!” shouted Esther and suddenly she was ploughing into the back of me.   


I tumbled forward, hitting Miko in the back and sending the three of us rolling down the tunnel and out the other side.

We landed on solid ground, hard. Behind me I heard the sound of Esther losing her bacon sandwich. Miko, seemingly well-practiced at ground bridge travel, was fine. She was already running off. I was slower off the mark, feeling not quite as sick as Esther, but still bad enough that my legs wobbled and my stomach needed a minute to settle.   


I got to my feet just in time to hear Bulkhead say, “It’s a trap.”


	4. Sleight of Hand

Say what you will about the luscious, soft grass and muddy ground in Scotland, it still hurts when you slam into it. Despite being able to stand now, my butt was suffering from a ridiculous ache. I stumbled up next to Miko who was looking a little horrified at the scene surrounding us. Served her right for running off, I thought to myself. 

Esther, on the other hand, was loving it, staring around at all the giant robots and looking like she was ready to squee. Just as she seemed about ready to run off and inspect what I assumed was a Decepticon, I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over to us. In a tight huddle we watched as the circle of enemies converged on the Autobots.

“Optimus! Good to see you again…”   


I looked u p to see the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen, just as Optimus replied, “Megatron.”   


The name fit perfectly. Everything about him was mega. He looked mega-evil, he was mega-HUGE, and the overall effect was that he looked mega-scary. He was taller than Optimus. He was taller than the giant robot who had reduced me to a blubbering mess when I tried to speak to him

“Whoa, get a load of bucket head…” Esther breathed beside me.

I’d forgotten she was there. Remembering I had back-up brought me back to reality a little. I grabbed her hand. She looked at me like I was a moron. But, good sister that she was, she squeezed back.

“What do you want, Megatron?” Optimus demanded, battle stance at the ready.

“Don’t worry, Optimus.” Megatron’s voice was dismissive. “You don’t need to do a thing. Just sit back and relax as my Decepticons take back my treasures from you.”

None of the robots in the circle moved. Our guys seemed as confused as I was.

“We wouldn’t be stupid enough to bring them with us,” Bulkhead scoffed.

“No,” agreed Megatron. “And yet you left them unguarded in your base.”

“Hah!” Miko shouted, revealing our location to the whole group. “You don’t even know where our base  _ is _ !”

I shivered as Megatron turned his gaze to us with an evil smirk plastered on his metal face.

“Oh, but I do, fleshling.”

I was suddenly happy that Esther and I were out of the base. My heart, however, did go out to Ratchet who would be alone. Then my mind started to tick over – he wouldn’t be alone, because Bee probably wouldn’t have left with Jack and Raf once they realised Miko was gone. Ratchet having back-up made me slightly happier, but the thought of Jack and Raf in the path of giant robots on a mission from Metal Satan over there… I shivered again.

While all of this had been going through my head, in the real world Optimus and the others had noticed we were here.

“What are you doing here?” Arcee hissed at us.

“Trying to stop  _ her _ !” I hissed back, pointing at Miko.

“Oh so  _ that’s _ what you were doing,” said Esther. “I thought you were going without me.”

“How stupid do you think I am!” I said, now hissing at her instead. “I know better than to sneak along on a dangerous mission involving giant robots.”

“Please,” Miko chimed in at full volume. “I do it all the time.”

Optimus and Megatron were looking at us like we were a bunch of morons. They were pretty close to the mark.

“New pets, Optimus?” the bigger bot asked.

_ Oh dear… _

As if on cue, Esther and Miko started shouting obscenities at the same time. Or, at least, Esther did. Miko kept throwing out words like ‘scrap’ and ‘frag’ and ‘glitch’. Maybe that was how the robots swore. 

The Autobots took the moment of distraction as an opportunity to strike. Arcee stood in front of us while Optimus and Bulkhead swung out at the circle of Decepticons. They went flying, and Arcee had to protect us from a fair few bits of desiccated robot. She backed us over to a large rock.

“ _ Stay here _ ,” she said pointedly.

The second she was gone Miko looked like she was going to run back towards the fight, but this time I was faster. I grabbed her and wrestled her back towards my sister. Thankfully, Esther seemed to be feeling sensible at the moment because she pinned Miko’s arms behind her back and held her in place. I kept my eye on the fight from where we stood.

All the other Decepticons had been defeated. Now, only Optimus Prime and Megatron still stood - giant sword-arms locked together. Having finished off their own quarries, however, Bulkhead and Arcee surrounded Megatron and he accepted defeat. He stood back, but instead of surrendering he took off towards a ground bridge portal that appeared suddenly. Then he was gone.

“Damn,” I cursed as Esther let Miko free.

Rotating her shoulders Miko gave a verbal shrug, “Meh, he always gets away.”

We walked slowly back to the Autobots.

“Ratchet,” Optimus was saying. “Can you open a ground bridge?”

There was only a short delay before a swirling portal of our own opened up. The Autobots transformed and Bulkhead yelled, “Get in.”

We didn’t need telling twice. Our base was still in trouble.

 

The group rocketed through the portal at full speed. When we came out the other side Bulkhead ejected us, immediately transforming. I was ready for the gut-churning feeling, but hitting the ground felt worse this time around. I groaned as I rose to my feet. Hopefully the next time I went through a ground bridge I could just walk through or something.

I looked around the room, ready to dodge any duelling robots that might head my way, but there were none. What there  _ was _ , was a pile of sparking, purple robot parts in the middle of the room. Sitting on top of them was…

“Who’s  _ that _ ?” Esther asked.

“Wheeljack!” Miko cried out. She grinned up at him as she ran forward.

Obviously, he was a friend. As if the pile of dead Decepticons hadn’t been a clue.

“You took out all those cons by yourself?” Arcee asked the newcomer, looking sceptical.

“Don’t sound so surprised, Arcee,” he told her. “Wreckers never call for backup.”

“They call for cleanup!” answered Bulkhead.

_ Wreckers? _

Wheeljack jumped off the pile of bodies before being crushed in a metallic, green hug.

“Where ya been, Jackie?” his friend asked. 

“Around and about,” Wheeljack answered.

Now it was our turn. Jack and Raf ran over to the small collection of humans.

“Miko, I can’t believe you just ran off like that!” Jack said.

“Really, you can’t?” asked Raf.

I sighed. I’d already kind of guessed, but it looked like I’d be dealing with a lot of escaping Miko.

“Are you okay?” asked Jack.

When Miko didn’t reply I snapped out of my thoughts and realised he was talking to me.

“Oh, me? I’m fine. Maybe a skinned knee or two but I’ll live.”

Esther looked at me. “Should I look at them, or…?”

I’d been speaking figuratively, but decided to mess with her a bit.

“After causing them in the first place? You’d better.”

Esther took the bait.

“Hey, if anything, it was  _ her _ fault,” she said, gesturing at Miko. “If she hadn’t run off you wouldn’t have had to chase her.”

“You didn’t have to follow me!” Miko yelled back.

I laughed and left them to it. 

Wandering off, I went over to Ratchet’s work station and plopped down on the edge again. Not long after I did, an alarm went off.

“It’s Fowler,” Ratchet called out without looking up.

I wondered if he’d left his computer at all during the fight. Then I wondered who ‘Fowler’ was.

Some doors in a tube I now realised was a lift opened and a middle-aged black man in a kind of boring-looking suit said, “Who the hell are these two?”

Arcee looked at me and Esther before saying, “Scrap.”

“ _ More _ civilians, Prime?” said the man, looking straight to Optimus with a disapproving look on his face.

I was surprised at how easily he managed to scold a giant robot.

“We’re not civilians,” Esther shouted from the ground. “I’m a paramedic!”

“Oh,” said the man, “something that might actually be useful.”

I hopped down from the console and met my sister halfway to the stairs. The guy made his way down to ground level.

“Agent William Fowler,” he said, shaking first Esther’s hand then mine.

Then he ran his other hand up and down the back of his neck. “Look, at this point, I have no choice but to officially put you both on the department’s records. That is, if you plan on sticking around.”

“Well,” I said, “from the sound of what Optimus told me the Decepticons might attack us now they’ve seen us with the Autobots. So I don’t think we have a choice if we want to be safe.”

I couldn’t resist looking at Esther and Miko as I said that. I still fully intended to blame my predicament on them.

“Then you’re coming with me.”

“That doesn’t sound sinister at all,” Esther said, folding her arms and refusing to budge; even when I grabbed her by the elbow and started to tug her towards the stairs.

“It’s just to fill out some paperwork. Then you can come back and play with the giant robots.”

Fowler’s sarcastic tone told me everything I needed to know about his job.

Sighing, I followed him up the stairs, knowing my sister would come along in her own due time. She was about to realise we were off to secret agent headquarters in 3… 2… 1…

“WAIT FOR ME!”

 

The place I’d so naively dubbed ‘secret agent headquarters’ turned out to be a dingy office at a nearby military base. Forgive me for thinking I was finally going to get out of Nevada after making the mistake of immigrating here.

“This is not the Pentagon,” Esther said dismally, slumped over both the desk and her paperwork.

I yanked the forms out from under her. Looking them over to see what still needed filled out, I shook my head. She’d circled ‘Miss’ and that was it.

After half an hour I’d finished both our paperwork and Agent Fowler was returning with the coffees he’d promised us when we arrived. I stood.

“No need, Agent,” I said. “We’re done.”

He put down the coffee. “Not quite. You still need a debriefing from my superiors.”

“To be fair, Agent Fowler, we can get all the debriefing we need from the Autobots. What could your ‘superiors’ have to say to us that they can’t?”

I’m mean when I’m tired.

“We’re on paper, we’re official, we’re going home.”

I charged out of the room and Esther followed, giving Fowler her best snooty look. It wasn’t until we started approaching the doors that I realised we had no way of getting home without him. Too proud to turn around now, I kept going until I reached fresh air. 

 

A yellow Urbana was parked on the dirt road outside the base. I hopped easily into the back seat. After only a day it was strange the amount of trust I’d awarded the Bots.

“I’m not even going to ask how you’re magically here when I needed you, Bee,” I said, relaxing into the seat and shutting my eyes.

He pulled off suddenly and I heard Esther swear from outside.

“Not funny, Bee,” I told him, drifting off. “You need to go back for her.”

I didn’t get to see my command through to its completion, though; my bad night’s sleep had finally caught up to me. I fell asleep – slumped sideways across the entire back seat.

 

I’ve heard all the stories about parents getting their kids to sleep by taking them for a drive, but I never really expected that to work on adults. Apparently it not only works on people my age, but doesn’t require a real car either; a robot disguised as one will do just as well. It worked so well on me that I wasn’t even awake for the part where Bee transformed and carried me limply through the base. Nope. One minute I was drifting off in the back of the Camaro and the next I was waking up in bed.

I looked around, startled. Where was I? This wasn’t my bed. I had a thick, plush, queen-sized mattress for a start, not this thin, stiff, single one. I was surrounded by metal.  _ The base. _ I hadn’t realised the base even had a bunk room, but it wasn’t like I’d been there long enough today for a tour. That is, if it was even still today. Hey, maybe it was an infirmary. 

I felt slightly groggy, but not the ‘not enough sleep’ kind of groggy. No, this was the ‘slept too long’ kind of groggy. I was quickly fighting my way out of it, though.

The bed was a bit higher than I would have expected, but I swung my legs over the edge and jumped straight to the floor. On landing, I felt a pain shoot up my ankle.

_ Goddammit _ . I don’t know why I’d decided to try and be cool today. Not with my co-ordination.

Once I’d massaged my foot for a while I tried walking. Concentrating on placing my feet perfectly I took a few steps to see if the pain was gone. Then, confident I was able to walk again, I left the room and headed down several random corridors in an attempt to find that main control room. 

 

The corridors were massive; bigger than I remembered them being. There were also a lot more lights in the wall and down at floor level. Still, that was a good thing. It was nice to be able to see. I knew the Autobots must be used to looking out underfoot with the kids around, but I didn’t want to take any chances – being able to see them in time to dodge was good.

I rounded a corner and almost ended up stepped on anyway. But not by any of the robots I was expecting. A giant, purple Decepticon stood before me, looking just as shocked as I was.

“Hey, you shouldn’t be here!” he said before his arm lunged towards me.

_ You’re damn right I shouldn’t be! _ I turned and started running in the opposite direction. He was too fast, too close. Before I’d taken more than a few steps he’d snatched me off the ground and hoisted me into the air.  _ Dammit. _

 

The Decepticon carried me through the corridors until we reached a set of double doors that opened automatically.

“Lord Megatron,” he said just as a huge, silver bot turned around.

_Shit._ _Please, somebody tell me this is a nightmare._

“The human…” Megatron said slowly. Obviously he remembered me. Then, abruptly, he yelled “Makeshift!”

The spikiest robot I’d ever seen (and that was saying something seeing as Megatron was in the room) stepped forward.

“Yes, my Lord,” he answered.

“You brought a human on board and  _ didn’t restrain it! _ ”

So I was here on purpose? Well, at least I hadn’t managed to sleepwalk here or something. Also, apparently the Decepticons have a ship? Now there’s something my new friends had neglected to mention. I’d just assumed they had their own base like the Autobots did. Was Megatron the robot Captain Hook or something?

“My Lord, I left her in the containment room as you instructed.”

“Well, evidently, you failed to LOCK THE DOOR.”

I stared, shocked, as Megatron backhanded the other Decepticon across the room.

“Knock Out,” he said now, and I was worried he was going to incapacitate me or something. Then I realised it might be another Decepticon’s name. But nobody in the room acknowledged him. That didn’t seem to stop him, though, as he carried on regardless. “Come to the bridge and collect our prisoner. Take her to your laboratory and  _ restrain her properly. _ ”

Okay, so apparently Pirate Captain Megatron also has telepathy.

 

Within a few minutes, a red robot (about half Megatron’s height) entered the bridge. In the meantime, the others had gone back to their duties while the poor drone had been left standing awkwardly holding me in his hand.

I mentally scolded myself. The Decepticons were evil and had taken me prisoner. Who knows what they planned to do to me? I shouldn’t have been feeling sorry for  _ any _ of them.

By the time I had that thought out, the red bot had crossed the room and was ready to grab me. For a minute I considered doing something to try and get free, but it was a  _ long _ way to the ground and I’d already seen what I could do to myself falling just a few extra inches. This ‘Knock Out’ held me on his palm and scrutinised me with gigantic red eyes. I sat still and stared back. 

Then, in the most camp voice I’d ever heard, he said, “Very well, Lord Megatron, if that will be all.” After that he turned on his heel and left the room, not bothering to close his hand around me. Like I said: I was miles too high off the ground with nowhere to go.


	5. Headache

Not long afterward I found myself in a laboratory. Knock Out had simply plonked me down on a workbench and started poking around at a computer screen that wasn't unlike Ratchet's. The thought of the big, white Autobot made my heart give a forlorn flutter. Would I ever see any of them again? Would I ever see my sister again?  
A few blips from the computer brought me back to the present.  
"Weren't you supposed to restrain me?" I asked my camp captor.  
He paused in his work and stared at me, pretty close to the way he had earlier.  
"Did you want me to?"  
"Well, no… but aren't you worried I'll try to run away?"  
This time he actually moved away from the console and walked over to me. His head lowered to mine and I felt my stomach flip as the giant, metal creature focused those red eyes on me again. The rest of me followed suit, tensing up, waiting to see what he was going to do.  
"No," he said suddenly. "Not really."  
My sigh of relief was comically audible. Then my spine returned to the party and I said something I now consider fairly stupid.  
"What, you think you can just give me a good scare and that'll stop me?"  
Luckily, this was Knock Out I was talking to. He just laughed.  
"No, I expect the fifteen foot drop to the floor will do that. Either that or it will ensure I don't have to chase you afterwards."  
Great. Well, at least my captor had a sense of humour. I could laugh myself all the way to my gruesome end.

As it turned out, Knock Out kind of ignored me for the next while. I'd expected to be immediately subjected to a whole host of evil and painful experiments, but for the most part I was left to my own devices, chilling out on top of the workbench.  
After he'd tapped out commands on his giant keyboard for what felt like forever, Knock Out finally walked away from the console. I tensed again, fearing my impending doom. He crossed the room, picked up a lethal-looking instrument, and then turned back around. I was momentarily confused until he smacked the console with it.  
"Piece of scrap!" he yelled.  
I was across the room faster than I thought possible.  
"Don't do that!"  
The giant, red robot holding the scientific instrument stared at me. For good reason, too. I was a little shocked at myself. I was only thrown off for a second though before I went straight back to it.  
"You have to show computers more respect!"  
"Ohh…" he said slowly. He wiped his free hand down his face. "Look, not all our technology is sentient, you know. That would be silly."  
Now it was my turn. "I'm not upset because I think it's alive. You just have to treat your equipment properly or it'll never work for you!"  
My sudden rant reminded me of Ratchet. I tried to cool off a bit.  
Knock Out, however, seemed curious. "What do you know about this kind of equipment?"  
Stage fright and a healthy dose of suspicion washed over me. Then I realised that my skills might just be my lifeline. They were a lot more likely to keep my body in working order if the attached brainstem had important information in it.  
"It's more technology in general. I studied to become a programmer at university. Plus I just love technology. Everything from video games and computers to fast cars."  
"Fast cars, huh?" Knock Out asked.  
It wasn't something I'd expected him to latch on to. Then I remembered I was talking to someone from a race of robots who all transformed into vehicles. Oh well, I decided to go along with that for now.  
"Not just fast," I added. "They have to be pretty, too. I don't care how fast a car goes if it looks like crap."  
"So they do teach your kind important values after all," Knock Out said, seeming impressed.  
I laughed. "Actually, on Earth I'd seem a bit shallow for saying that."  
I don't know if I'd said the wrong thing, or if he just didn't have anything else to add, because Knock Out went back to his console again. Deciding there was no way I could take it if he started ignoring me again for ages, I trotted across the bench I was standing on and tried to find a way across to sit under the screen like I did with Ratchet.  
While I was crouched slightly, trying to figure out if I could make it if I jumped across, Knock Out noticed me and looked down.  
"What are you doing?"  
"Oh, I was coming over to-" That strange, fearful feeling hit me again. My stomach flipped and I remembered these were not the robots I was used to. There might have had a bit of banter between us before, but it didn't seem like Knock Out would let me just lounge all over his workstation like Ratchet did.  
He looked at me, waiting for me to say more.  
"I was going to sit over there…" I said quietly.  
He shrugged, picked me up, and plopped me under the screen.  
"What's your name?" he asked suddenly.  
"Heather," I told him. "And you're Knock Out, right?"  
"That's right." There was a small pause as he seemed to consider something. Then he said, "Any of these numbers make sense to you?"  
I looked at the screen. It was a graph of something. Unfortunately, all the symbols for numbers were in Cybertronian. So, not knowing which numbers were higher or lower than others, I couldn't make any sense of it. Other than the line on the graph itself.  
"Well, whatever it is," I said, "it's going up."  
"I know," Knock Out agreed. "And it shouldn't be."  
"Why not?" I was curious now, there was a puzzle to solve.  
"Because it's the level of a particular toxin in the crew's bodies."  
"Oh."  
That wasn't what I'd been expecting. Then again, this guy had a lab. It made sense he'd be looking into things like toxins and chemicals. Examining the rest of the laboratory more closely now I realised it did look sort of like a super-technological sick bay.  
"So, is it a toxin you guys naturally have in your blood that's higher than usual, or is it one whose presence just generally means bad things?"  
"Option 2," Knock Out answered. "I found some in a Vehicon's blood a few weeks ago. So, naturally, I began slowly testing others to see how far the toxin had spread."  
Vehicon, huh? I was going to take a massive leap of faith and assume that was a Decepticon who turned into a vehicle. Could be wrong.  
"So what did you find?" I asked.  
"Everyone has it."  
"Even you?"  
"Even me. And now a second round of tests shows it's getting worse."  
I thought about it some more. I knew the Decepticons were evil. I knew that one order from their terrifying leader would be enough for Knock Out to squish me flat without a second thought. But something in my stupid, twingey stomach was telling me there was something else I knew. I knew there was something about him that made me like him, it would make me sad to see him die.  
"To get it into your body do you just have to be exposed to the toxin? Or do you actually have to ingest it?"  
I was getting out of my depth here. Esther was the trained medical professional, not me. Still, I picked up bits of information and protocol from her here and there. Hopefully plain logic would be enough to help me figure this one out and, maybe, prove my worth to the Decepticons so they wouldn't do horrible experiments on me or kill me.  
"It's possible that the toxin could get into one's energon stream through long-term exposure, but that would take years. This has occurred over a matter of weeks."  
"So basically you guys have to essentially be eating it somehow. And in big amounts."  
"Exactly." What counted for Knock Out's eyebrows narrowed.

I must have spent hours with Knock Out working on solutions to the problem. He explained what bits of the science I needed to know to draw conclusions and then we worked on theories regarding both how they'd all been exposed to the stuff, how long it had been happening, and what exactly they had been exposed to in order to ingest this particular toxin. Somewhere between ruling out the Autobots being responsible and what would have been us finally figuring out how much of their energon supply was contaminated, I fell asleep.  
The loudest noise on the planet woke me up. It was like being asleep next to a bomb going off. I flew backwards across the room and skidded along the bench. I came to my senses to see Knock Out's computer crushed and sparking madly. I turned my head to the right slightly to look at the floor and saw Knock Out himself on his back in a crab-like position.  
"CAN NOBODY ON THIS SHIP FOLLOW A SIMPLE INSTRUCTION?" a familiar voice roared.  
Looking around further I mimicked Knock Out's position, scuttling backwards as far as I could. Megatron was in the room, arm-blade out and looking ready to kill at least one of us. I swallowed – or tried to, anyway.  
"A momentary distraction, my Liege, I planned to return her to captivity once I had retrieved all possible information from her."  
Yeah, right. I wasn't even offended. I knew it was a load of bullshit. I soon realised my mistake in making light of the situation, though, when my mental scoff turned into an audible snort; drawing Megatron's attention from Knock Out to me.  
"Your prisoner doesn't seem to agree, Knock Out…"  
I sent a nervous, apologetic smile in the scientist's direction before scrambling to my feet. My back and legs ached from their impact with the metal surface, but I shakily maintained an upright position. I had to be ready to dodge Megatron's next outburst. I was pretty sure I wouldn't survive another one.  
"Pay attention, Knock Out," Megatron snarled. "This is how you get information out of a prisoner."  
He began striding towards my bench just as I screamed, "Verysmallandsquishy!"  
He paused. "What?"  
"I'm very small, and very squishy. You can't beat the information out of me, I'll die."  
I'd kind of thought I had him there, but his grin was pure wickedness.  
"Oh, I doubt that will be necessary."

Don't ask me how Knock Out managed to a) find straps small enough to tie me down and b) actually get me into them. I was too busy trying not to wet myself while in Megatron's grasp. I stayed perfectly still the whole time. My body was frozen solid and my mind was on a constant loop of It's a bad dream, it's a bad dream, it's a bad dream… During this time I did register Megatron's fingers flexing a few times, almost crushing me. I was sure he was doing it on purpose.  
I was finally released from my fear-coma when Megatron's fingertips released my limbs, which he'd apparently had pinned against a metal slab for a while now. I sagged slightly in relief from my new position - strapped to the metal beside a new console which had been hastily wheeled into the lab sometime earlier.  
Then Megatron drew back. Suddenly the giant, scary robot who had been holding me prisoner between his fingers was now looking down at me with a menacing expression while I was strapped in place unable to move.  
I changed my opinion on whether to be relaxed or not.  
It didn't get any better when Knock Out revealed the world's most ridiculous looking adaptor cable. It started out at one end looking like those suction cups they stick on people's heads to monitor their brain waves. Then the cable grew in thickness until it was the size of one of those large, concrete pipes that are just mysteriously on every building site in every movie ever. Finally, it ended in a gigantic version of the cup at my end – although at that scale it looked more like an evil vacuum cleaner nozzle.  
The next part of the process surprised me. Megatron took several quick strides to my left and positioned himself on another berth similar to mine. What the hell was going on here?  
"Lord Megatron, I have yet to test this new equipment on an actual human subject. It is entirely possible that you might crush her mind in the process."  
"Then we'll just have to find another one until you get it right," Megatron said before his eyes closed. "Now get on with it!"  
I had only a moment to register these words - and become even more terrified - before the suction cup was attached to my head and a bolt of energy surging into me knocked me out cold.

I found myself wandering through a thick, almost debilitating fog. Every step took tremendous effort and it felt as though the air itself was holding me back. I was so tempted just to give in and lie down. I knew if I did that I could sleep for as long as I wanted. Forever, even… But then there was that nagging fear at the back of my mind, the knowledge that I couldn't go to sleep, that I needed to push through. I needed to find my way out of this fog somehow.  
I blundered around through the mist, getting nowhere. I was almost about to lose hope, to give in, when a neon purple shone through the darkness. It glinted off the fog at every angle, making it hard to see where it was coming from. I focused hard, willing myself to find the answer, to find a way out.  
Eventually, after a few more minutes the light seemed to condense a little up ahead. Slightly more confident I knew what I was doing, I took a few laboured steps towards the light.  
A tough and gravelly, yet almost kind-sounding voice spoke to me from a distance, coaxing me through the darkness.  
"That's it, fleshling, this way…"  
Fleshling? The word struck a chord in my heart that I recognised. The owner of this voice was someone I was afraid of, someone I shouldn't trust. For just a moment I felt like I was starting to remember; for a second I thought I knew why I was there, what I was doing.  
"Hurry!" the voice said, with more urgency now.  
Shoving my doubts aside I ran through the fog with all the strength I could muster. As I approached the purple light it gathered around me, condensing in time with the fog until I felt smothered in them both. Then, finally, I broke free and plunged into another place entirely.

I landed, surprisingly, flat on my feet and completely uninjured. Well, now I knew this had to be a dream. I was always getting injured. Just like… like when I'd hit the workbench… in Knock Out's lab… That hadn't been very long ago, but I didn't feel my injuries any more. I didn't feel any pain at all.  
How had I gotten here from there? Better yet, where was here?  
Black spots swarmed in front of my vision, followed by glittering sparkles. It looked like I was going to pass out. My throat began to constrict as well, my whole body felt like it was shutting down. Was I dying?  
No… I thought. I will not die.  
"No!" Knock Out? For just a moment, I was so sure I heard his voice, urging me on from far, far away.  
"There you are, human!" a voice growled at me. This one was definitely not Knock Out. "You will give me the answers I seek or I will crush your mind."  
I looked around, still trying to fight through the blackness and the glitter and losing. I caught a wavering image of Megatron's face lowering to mine, his sharp teeth looking like they were going to devour me. Then that darkness closed in around me and I lost consciousness.  
As I did so, I felt metal fingers close around me, catching me as I plummeted towards God knows where.

Several weeks of recovery followed. I lay on Knock Out's table, cold and uncomfortable, as I repeatedly faded in and out of consciousness. Whenever I woke up for long enough Knock Out would yell at me until I grudgingly accepted the food and drink he offered, then I would fall back into a dreamless sleep.  
After the first week I was able to stay consciousness for a full day at a time, but Knock Out still refused to let Megatron near me. I was suspiciously grateful. I wasn't sure if I could really trust him, after he'd proved just what he would allow his boss to do to me, but I was also happy for the reprieve.  
The first time I'd stayed awake long enough I had realised what had been done to me, what that strange dreamscape was, and I was in no hurry to experience it again. I knew, however, that until the Autobots rescued me or the Decepticons killed me, I'd keep being sent back there while Megatron stole my secrets.

Towards the end of week three, Megatron stormed into the room. Knock Out had been trying to force feed me a biscuit at the time and he hastily shoved it behind his back.  
"She's had more than long enough," Megatron bellowed over Knock Out's protests.  
Oh well, the rest period couldn't have lasted indefinitely. I didn't even bother putting up a fight. In fact, I was so desperate to stay away from those cold, cruel fingers that I walked over to my little stand all by myself and strapped myself in.  
I looked at Knock Out with determination chiselled onto my face. Do it, I willed him. Do it before I lose my nerve.  
I didn't know where this sudden 'hero's stupidity' – as it is often called – had come from, but it was fading just as fast as it had arrived. No matter, Knock Out pressed the cable to my forehead and I plunged back into darkness.


	6. Assholes Anonymous

By the time she finally reached the base, Esther was furious. Furious and sweaty.  _ Blech. _ She’d followed in her sister’s footsteps and stubbornly refused to go back to Fowler and ask for a lift.

Despite the fact that said sister had just  _ abandoned her at the side of the road! _

“Whoa, Esther, are you okay?”

“Fine, Bulkhead!” she announced, throwing a hand up in the air. Then she stopped. “Tell me, did the Bumblebee Party Bus come back with my sister yet?”

“Uh, Bumblebee’s taking the kids home… I thought your sister was with you…” 

The big bot scratched his metal head as he looked at her. She glared at him and he shrugged, giving her a nervous smile. 

“Then where is she? And who the hell was the yellow Urbana that drove away with her?”

“That is what I would like to know,” said Optimus from behind her.

Esther turned around just in time to see Optimus Prime and Arcee transform and take a few steps towards her. She couldn’t help it.

“What’ve you two been doing?” she asked, waggling her eyebrows.

Arcee face-palmed. Optimus on the other hand seemed oblivious.

“We have been investigating unusual energon readings in a forest in Europe.”

Now Esther was actually intrigued. “Yeah? What did you find?”

“Starscream appears to have been hoarding a large supply. We have liberated it from him.”

“Who’s Starscream?”

“Megatron’s ex-second-in-command,” Bulkhead offered.

“Oh.” There was only a moment of silence before Esther was back on the attack. “Now where’s my sister?”

Arcee crouched down. “You said a car that looked like Bumblebee took her?”

As if hearing his name, the yellow sportscar whizzed out of the entrance tunnel and screeched to a sliding halt. He transformed and gave a cheery beep in greeting. Esther rounded on him immediately. She let out a sinister growl that had the yellow Bot backing away with his hands in the air.

“Easy there, Predacon,” warned Bulkhead. “There’s no way it could’ve really been Bumblebee.”

Bumblebee gave a confused beep.

“Heather’s missing,” Esther announced to the room. “She got into a car that looked like Bumblebee and left me at the side of the road.”

Arcee turned to Optimus. “Do you know any yellow Cons?”

“No,” Optimus replied, frowning. 

“Hey, what about that Con who impersonated Jackie a while back?” asked Bulkhead.

“Yes…” said Ratchet, just now revealing that he’d actually been listening to the conversation. Or in the room at all, come to think about it. He was really quiet sometimes. “He does seem a likely suspect. But what would the Decepticons want with a human?”

“Maybe they took her in for  _ secret interrogations _ !” Miko leapt forward in a battle pose. The rest of the room stared at her as she gave an awkward wave. “Uh… hi guys!”

Esther sagged. “I just can’t fucking get rid of you today, can I?”

“Hey, language, tough guy,” the kid replied.

Esther decided to ignore her. She stomped over to the stairs and sat down hard. 

“I don’t care who took her or why, I just want my sister back! I don’t deal with separation well,” she began to moan, “that’s why I followed her here to this  _ stupid desert _ .”

“Hey, we’ll get her back,” Bulkhead rumbled.

“Yeah!” Miko struck another pose and Esther rolled her eyes.

Optimus seemed to have tuned out for most of the conversation until now. Either that or he’d just been ignoring their antics. Either way he continued on like nothing had ever happened.

“Ratchet, begin scanning for anything that might give us a clue as to Heather’s location. Bulkhead, Arcee, let’s see if Starscream can be of any more use to us today. Bumblebee, take Miko back home and ensure that she stays there.”

With that, he transformed. Ratchet was pretty quick on the uptake, already opening a ground bridge for the away team. The group of Bots disappeared into the swirling, green light, leaving the room considerably emptier.

“Hey, Bumblebee,” Esther called out, flagging down the yellow car as Miko was about to hop inside. “I’m coming with. I need a snack.”

“Good,” said Ratchet. “Maybe I’ll get some peace and quiet to search properly. I’ll contact you if I find anything, Bumblebee.”

It’s funny how a car can look wary. Bumblebee didn’t seem too happy about Esther climbing into the driver’s seat, but damn if she was dealing with the hassle of getting in and out of the back. Plus, she needed to order at the drivethru.

 

Right after they dropped Miko off, a white Lamborghini pulled up outside her house. Bumblebee seemed to recognise it as he gave his usual greeting beep. Esther recognised him, too, once his voice came through the radio.

“Hey, Bumblebee, I just thought Miko might like to come on a drive with me.”

“Hah. I think Miko’s had quite enough excitement for today,” Esther answered.

“Hey, it’s the new kid!” Wheeljack’s lights flicked on and off in greeting. “How about you come for a ride instead, then?”

“Not a kid. But I’d definitely love a ride. Later Bee,” she said, stepping out of the car who had so graciously already opened the door for her.

Once she was settled inside Wheeljack’s sleek interior the Autobot said, “You do know a late night drive is code for fighting Cons, right?”

“Hell yeah,” Esther answered. “Maybe we can find the one who took my sister and pound him into scrap metal. But first we have to go through drivethru. I’m hungry.”

“Wait, wait, wait-”

“No drivethru?” Esther folded her arms and pouted.

“No, I don’t have a problem getting fast food. Miko and I do it all the time. But, the cons took your sister?”

“Oh, yeah. I figured someone would’ve told you.”

“Uh… the rest of the Bots and I don’t talk much,” Wheeljack explained. “Except for Bulkhead, of course.” He stopped for a moment before he asked, “So what’s the plan? How’re they getting her back?”

Esther made a noise of frustration. “They don’t even know where she  _ is _ yet!”

Wheeljack slowed down a bit while he was thinking. Then he said, “Well, while we’re beating the scrap out of the Cons we’ll just have to ask them a few questions.”

 

Wheeljack was parked on the edge of a cliff overlooking a bunch of Decepticon drones while Esther munched on a cheeseburger in the driver’s seat. The Cons marched in and out of a cave down below, hauling cubes of energon.

“You finished yet?” asked Wheeljack.

“Almost,” Esther answered with a mouth full of fries. She crammed in a few more before balling up the bag and tossing it out the window. “Right,” she announced.

“Fasten your seatbelt, kiddo.”

Before she could object to the nickname, Wheeljack drove forward off the cliff and into the pile of Decepticons below. He transformed mid-jump, too. Esther was subjected to a stomach-churning process of being battered around his interior before she popped out of a cavity inside his chest. He caught her in his hand.

“Dude, why would you do that after I just ate?”

“Consider it payback for the fries you dropped on my floor mats.”

“You know, if you’d just told me I would’ve eaten them,” Esther said, rolling her eyes.

Wheeljack put her on the ground and strode up to a Con who happened to be looking the other way. He tapped him on the shoulder. The startled Con turned around, tripping as he did so. Before he reached the ground Wheeljack had sliced him in two.

“I thought we needed to interrogate them!” Esther shouted.

“Can’t interrogate one while the others are still kicking,” Wheeljack replied. Then a metal plate slid across his face and he readied his blades for action. Esther thought he kind of looked like a ninja.    
She found herself a comfy spot on a nearby rock to watch the fight.

Within minutes Wheeljack had created a pile of Decepticon bodies not unlike the one they’d come home to earlier that day. Geez, was it seriously just yesterday that she’d met Jack?

“All right, question time,” Wheeljack announced, flooring the last Decepticon and placing a foot on its chest to hold it down.

Esther hurried over, not wanting to miss a single syllable of the Con’s garbled screams.

“Where’s the Decepticon warship?” Wheeljack asked, grinding his heel into the Con’s chest plate.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” came the reply.

“Dead serious,” said his captor, before chopping off a hand.

Blue energon spilled from the wound.

“Eeew.”

“You all right there, kiddo?” Wheeljack asked, looking away from the Decepticon for a second.

Esther shrugged. “We need the information. This seems like the fastest way to get it.”

The Decepticon trooper struggled a little under Wheeljack’s foot, but the Autobot didn’t let up.

“ _ Where _ is the Nemesis, Con?”

He lost a leg next. Thankfully, that was the point where his determination broke.

“Okay, okay!” he pleaded. “No more!”

Wheeljack moved his blade away from the Decepticon’s eye.

“If I send them a message saying the energon is ready for pick-up they’ll come here right away.”

“You think we’re just going to let you contact your boss?”

“That’s the only way! We don’t get to know where the ship is or Autobots could interrogate us and find out its location.” He looked pointedly at Wheeljack.

“He’s got a point there, Jackie,” Esther agreed.

“All right, call them,” Wheeljack said, before he chopped off the Con’s other leg and attached a grenade to him.

Wheeljack picked Esther up by the back of her shirt and crouched behind a nearby rock. It wasn’t long before a gigantic spaceship came into view. Esther let out a low whistle.

“I want one,” she announced. 

“They must have been waiting nearby…” Wheeljack murmured, ignoring her.

Springing into action he grabbed Esther, threw her on his back and starting King Konging up the cliff. 

“Where are we going?” Esther hissed. 

“How else do you think we’re going to get onto the ship?”

When they reached the top Wheeljack crouched behind a rock to watch what was going on below. Two flying Decepticons had been sent down to help escort the energon, and they’d just discovered Wheeljack’s pile of bodies. Now was their chance, the warship wouldn’t stay low for very long once the Cons reported there were Autobots in the area.

“Hold on,” he told Esther.

Before she could do much to secure herself he leapt off the cliff and started freefalling towards the Nemesis. Once they’d cleared the gap Wheeljack began grabbing onto anything he could to slow their slide down the side of the ship. The only reason Esther managed not to scream was because she was too busy trying to hold in the cheeseburger.

Wheeljack pulled out his katanas and began using them like ice picks on the side of a mountain. Eventually, they regained the ground they’d lost and made it to the roof. The second Wheeljack pulled himself onto his belly on the roof Esther rolled off him and lay still, panting heavily.

Wheeljack pulled himself to his feet. “C’mon, kid. There’ll be Cons here soon.”

Esther tried to stumble to her feet. Wheeljack picked her up and plopped her on his shoulders again. Then they were off, running across the roof of the Nemesis.

 

Inside, they wandered blindly through corridors. Just because they’d found their way on board the ship didn’t mean they had a clue where they were going. After a while of climbing ever-deeper into the bowels of the ship they came across a gigantic chamber filled miles high with glowing, blue cubes.

“That… is a lot of energon,” Wheeljack said in a low voice.

“What should we do with it?” Esther asked, scanning the room. Even for someone Wheeljack’s size she was pretty sure there was way too much to carry.

“Better tell Optimus, I guess.”

After a second he said, “Optimus, Esther and I have found something you might want to know about.”

Then there was a pause.

“We’re on the Nemesis. We found a  _ huge _ stockpile of Energon-”

This time the reply was so loud even Esther could hear it.

“You’re  _ where?” _

“The kid and I went on a little joyride,” Wheeljack told him, “it’s fine.”

Esther barely stifled a snigger.

Wheeljack adjusted something near his ear and Esther could hear the quieter replies as well now. 

“If, and only if, there are cubes within easy reach, take some and return to base _ immediately. _ I will not have you place a human at any more risk.”

“Racist,” Esther muttered.

The transmission cut off.

Wheeljack skirted around the edge of the room until he reached the pile. Then he grabbed four energon cubes and placed two under each arm. After getting back out of the room again without a single Decepticon noticing, he started heading back down the hallway.

“C’mon, kid,” he said, gesturing with his head.

“But what about my sister?” Esther hissed at him.

“Sorry, but the energon’s pretty important. If we run out of it, we stop functioning, and supply’s been pretty low lately. We can’t miss out on a chance to get hold of some.”

“Didn’t you just get some from Starscream?”

“Yeah but you can never have too much.”

Their stealthy path back through the ship was interrupted as they ran into…

“Starscream?” Wheeljack sounded just as surprised as Esther felt.

The lanky Decepticon halted in his tracks in front of them. He took one look at Esther and began pointing wildly.

“You! How are you out of your cell? And why have you changed hair?!”

Esther stared at him. “Wait… what? Wait a second, my hair? WHERE’S MY SISTER? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HER?”

Starscream looked horrified. “There are  _ two of you _ ?”

Wheeljack had taken this opportunity to inch closer to the other robot. As Starscream finished speaking an energon cube hit him in the face and he fell to the floor unconscious.

“Let’s go,” Wheeljack told Esther.

“But they have my sister-”

“We can come back for her. As soon as they find Screamer we’re toast.”

He put her on his shoulder, picked up the cube he’d thrown and then started running before she could complain anymore.

 

The rest of their escape was an eccentric dance of tearing down corridors, leaping back and hiding occasionally, and several times getting into whirling swordfights with Decepticon drones. Finally their path of destruction lead them to the roof of the ship again, where they could see a mountain was coming up. Wheeljack dropped the cubes and Esther on the ground before transforming and opening his doors.

“Quick,” he told her. “Load up the cubes and let’s go.”

Esther did as she was told and leapt inside.

“So what’s the pla-aaaah!”

Wheeljack launched himself off the flight deck of the Nemesis and into open air. They plummeted for a few moments but then suddenly Esther was being buffeted about inside the car as Wheeljack hurtled down the side of the mountain. Eventually he seemed to get control of his momentum and stopped halfway across a plateau. Which was good, because Esther didn’t feel like going over any more cliffs today.

“Ratchet,” said Wheeljack, sounding a little puffed out, “get me a ground bridge.”

 

Back at base, Esther was morose. Any attempts to talk to her had been met with either grunted responses or outright insults. The entire room had momentarily come to a halt when she’d called Optimus Prime a ‘dickhead’. Wheeljack had looked like he was ready to prepare Esther’s funeral, but Optimus seemed to dismiss the outburst as that of a grieving sibling. He too had had to cope with the loss of many comrades and decided to leave Esther alone to deal with things in her own way.

Eventually, Bulkhead scooped her up and took her outside.

“Hey, where are we going? Where’s Wheeljack?”

“You’ll see,” was all she got.

Once they reached the open air, Bulkhead switched to vehicle mode. It took some coaxing to get Esther inside, but she eventually figured anything was better than waiting at the base doing nothing.

 

It didn’t take long before they reached a secluded stretch of desert. Nobody could see them save for the lone white Lamborghini doing burnouts under the setting sun.

“Wheeljack!” Esther called once Bulkhead let her out.

“Hey, kiddo,” he replied. “Not gonna bite me, are you?”

Esther sighed. “I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole.”

Bulkhead and Wheeljack both transformed.

“It’s okay,” Wheejack told her.

“We’re going to teach you how to deal with things, Wrecker style,” Bulkhead announced.

“Yeah, kid, welcome to Assholes Anonymous.”

They spent all night breaking things in the desert, racing, and shouting every dirty insult they could think of at an oblivious Megatron and his Decepticons. Esther made a mental note to remember some of those swearwords for later.


	7. Mind Games

This time, there was no blundering walk through fog. I fell straight onto solid ground. On my face and stomach, unfortunately, not my feet. I picked myself up and brushed down my clothes with my hands.

“Are you ready to surrender?” Megatron’s voice came from in front of me this time.

I looked up as he marched forward out of the darkness. I’d been planning to resist him, to remain defiant, but as his red eyes focused on me it was like his stare held an enormous weight of its own. I buckled and fell to my knees. I clutched my head as it pounded with pain and images of the inside of the base flashed across my vision.

“Much better,” said Megatron.

It was as though some force was pushing at my very memories, trying to pull them out of me. Whether it was Megatron himself or just an effect of this strange mind meld process didn’t matter - the weight was too strong and I fell completely onto the ground, losing consciousness as I went.

 

Megatron seemed to be getting impatient. He wanted the information now and he didn’t care if he killed me getting it. Just under a week after I’d passed out trying to fight him off, I woke up strapped down again.

_They didn’t even bother waking me up, this time… They were just going to put me straight under…_

I didn’t have any longer to be upset as they did exactly that.

 

It was like everything unfocused for a moment and then, after a few moments, cleared again. Then I was standing in the huge room. I was getting better at this already. Third time lucky, I guess.

I had a look around quickly. Megatron didn’t seem to be here, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. Still, if I had some time to get my bearings before his assault then I was damn well going to use it.

The room seemed smaller than I remembered. It took me a few minutes, but I was actually able to walk around the entire area to examine it. Before, the cavernous space had seemed like it would take me at least ten minutes just to walk to the other side.

“It seems you _have_ grown stronger.”

I turned around and saw exactly why the room had seemed smaller. I was now tall enough to reach Megatron’s waist. That seemed like a freaking huge achievement to me. No longer could he simply squish me. We finally had a semi-level playing field. Maybe I would get even taller as I grew in strength – if I got the chance, that is.

I readied myself, just in case he planned to physically attack me to get what he wanted.

Megatron laughed. “You may have gained a few extra feet in height, but you have a long way to go before you can _ever_ hope to defeat a gladiator such as myself.”

He had already taken several steps towards me before I started backing away. Even at my new height it wasn’t fast enough. He was on me in an instant, grabbing me by the throat and slamming me into the floor.

Crouched on one knee beside me he lowered his face to mine and said, “Now, are you going to give me the information I require, or do I have to illustrate my point further?”

_Well, let’s see._

I struggled under his grip, thrashing around like I was having a seizure - just like I’d seen people on TV do in this kind of situation. Nope, that wasn’t working. I tried flicking my legs up to kick him but his other hand karate chopped my knees. My whole body seized in agony.

“You disappoint me, human. You seemed like such a fast learner.”

Megatron’s fingers tightened around my throat. The reduced airflow quickly had me seeing stars.  
What was that other thing people on TV do?

“I… yield…” I rasped.

What? I had no idea what might happen if he killed me here. Dream logic said I would just wake up, but the new world of strange technology - where people could just plug themselves into your brain - said being careful might be a good idea.

Either way, Megatron smirked in response. He loosened his grip on my throat just enough so that I could breathe again. I coughed a little. He looked repulsed. Then I had an idea.

Taking a shuddering breath I coughed harder, violently. Megatron removed his hand completely and leant away from me. I rolled onto my stomach, keeping up the façade.

“Pathetic creature…” Megatron mumbled.

I smiled to myself.

He obviously hadn’t noticed I had my arms braced against the ground and one knee drawn up to my chest.

“It’s Heather,” I told him before I took off like a shot.

I thought about the 100 metres back in high school. It had been the only sport I was good at – I had no stamina for any of the longer-distance running, no co-ordination to throw anything like a shot-put or discus… Sprinting was my one trick; a short burst of speed that gave me just enough time to throw everyone else off.

When I reached the other end of the room I pivoted on one foot like I’d been taught that one time I tried to be a netball player, and got back into that ready position. I convinced myself I was a little taller.

Megatron was only a few steps behind me and he was smiling. He was smiling because he’d thought of something I hadn’t. His sword flipped out of the compartment in his arm and slashed upwards across my chest. Instinctively, I caught it with my fingers. It should have sliced them clean off but it didn’t. As I pulled down hard with my arms, I felt my body swell – both with determination and… something else.

Before I knew it I was the same height as Megatron. _Now_ we had an even playing field.

I swung out a leg and crossed it in front of me, knocking his own out from underneath him.

Unfortunately, he grabbed one of my wrists as he fell and lifted me up and over him. When I reached the halfway point, his legs had recovered and he used them in sync with his arm to fling me across the room behind him.

I skidded across the floor and then rolled. I landed in a curled up heap, coughing and spluttering from the blow to my gut.

“As I said,” Megatron announced, getting to his feet and striding towards me. “My battle skills were honed in the pits of Kaon. You cannot hope to defeat me.”

I stood as well, shakily, hunched forward a little. As pathetic as I must have looked I still stared him down.

“I admire your spark, human, but I suggest you surrender now while I’m still feeling generous.”

I laughed. “Generous?”

Megatron smiled at me. “Yes, generous. Surrender now and I may spare you once I have obtained the information I seek. Continue to waste my time and I will terminate you and find another to take your place.”

I fully intended to tell him to shove it, that I would never give him what he wanted. But then my knees gave out and I dropped to the floor. My hands flew out to stop me, but if you’d ever needed a sign of supplication, that was pretty much it. Megatron took it as exactly that.

“A wise decision,” he said as he moved to tower over my crumpled form.

Megatron lowered his hand over my skull and dug his fingers into my hair. I guess he planned to extract the information from my mind in a literal fashion. Not if I could help it.

I felt the process begin and knew I didn’t have much time. It felt like he was electrocuting my brain. I didn’t know how long I could take that before he either got what he wanted or I passed out.

I leant forward and flung out my arm, grabbing onto his boot. If his Cybertronian-ness could mess with my head, maybe my humanity could mess with his.

He looked down at me just as I pushed the full force of my will into him. I felt all my pain, my fear, my love for my sister and my friends, and my determination to live - to never give in, flow out of me and into Megatron.

The static energy of our fight for dominance created a buzzing cloud around us. His purple sparks flitted in and out between my pink ones (Esther would probably never let me live that one down) as we each wrestled for control. Megatron might have the advantage on the battlefield, but I had to hope that when it came to mental willpower that I could at least match him if not surpass him.

Just as I felt like I was close to victory there was a huge explosion. Megatron and I were both thrown to opposite sides of the room. I tried to struggle back up, to get at least a glimpse of my foe, but blackness surrounded me once more.

 

This time, I woke straight up. I blinked at the sudden light around me and saw Knock Out sitting in the corner looking rather bored.

“Heather?” He sat up quickly and began crossing the room. He looked at Megatron who still seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be asleep. “What happened in there?”

“I think I won,” I said hoarsely, “but I’m not sure… Either way, when he wakes up he’s going to be really pissed off.”

Consideration passed over Knock Out’s features for a brief moment before he was untying me and pulling the suction cup off my head. He hid me behind some equipment on his desk.

“Stay here for a moment,” he muttered.

Then, slowly, he approached Megatron. Reaching behind his master he yanked the other end of the cable from the back of his head. A few moments passed and nothing happened. Knock Out glanced at my hiding place and shrugged. Then he noticed my eyes widening and spun around.

Megatron blinked awake and leant forward slightly. Then he stood up and headed for the door.

“You will inform me the very moment she recovers,” he growled. Then he left.

Knock Out and I shared the same confused look.

 

Eating biscuits of my own volition this time I sat on the edge of Knock Out’s new workstation chatting idly.

“Where the hell did you get human food anyway?” I asked him.

“Let’s just say there are some very scared teenagers running around Tokyo now, convinced that cars can talk.”

I almost choked on my biscuit. “That would explain the pocky, I guess. Could do with some more of that.”

“Maybe next time you could come with me.”

I clapped my hands with glee. “Hey, are there really street races in Tokyo? Like in that movie that didn’t have Vin Diesel in it until the very end?”

“There are street races everywhere,” Knock Out replied. “You just have to know where to look.” Then he looked at me strangely. “Who’s Vin Diesel?”

“Some muscly bald guy who’s in a lot of action movies,” I told him.

“That involve racing cars?” he asked.

I chuckled. “Sometimes. You could always go see one at a drive in someday.”

Before we could start making plans for a hot date, guess who was at the door?

Suddenly ridiculously cocky I stood up and smirked at him, “Back for a rematch?”

“Easy, tiger,” Knock Out murmured through the side of his mouth.

“I see you’re awake and functioning,” Megatron said, ignoring my comment. “Good, I have a task for you.”

“For me?”

“Yes, pathetic human, for _you_. Complete it and I won’t terminate you for your insolence.”

Why wasn’t he interrogating me for information like usual, and why was he suddenly asking for my assistance instead? Megatron crossed the room and dropped a metal object onto the bench with a _clank._ I stared at it, wondering what he could possibly want me to do with it.

“Lazerbeak appears to have contracted a virus. Remove it.”

“Why me? Surely you guys know how to deal with a virus, being giant robots and all.”

“The virus appears to be human in origin,” Megatron explained. “So remove it before I remove your limbs.”

And then he was gone again.

I stared at Knock Out. “Does everyone who beats Megatron in a game of rough and tumble get a free pass to being a Decepticon?” I asked him.

He laughed, “You’re not far off.”

I stared at Lazerbeak, lying broken on the table. “How do I even get access to his programming?” I said. “I can’t just plug myself in. If I at least had a laptop or something…”

Knock Out made his way over to a compartment under the table and pulled out a boxy, black device.

“Like this?” he asked, flipping it open.

“Where did you get that?” I asked. It felt weird seeing human technology in such an alien place.

“It’s from back when we first arrived on your planet,” Knock Out explained. “We got hold of human technology and analysed it to find out your capabilities. Can’t say we were particularly impressed.”

I rolled my eyes at him. Then I jumped over to the workbench (something I’d worked out a while ago that, yes, I could actually achieve without killing myself) and he handed me the laptop. It was an old IBM one, about five years out of date, but as long as it functioned that didn’t matter much.  Next he produced another cable. This one was USB at one end with a strange, multi-pronged attachment at the other. I took the USB end and plugged it into the laptop while Knock Out took care of Lazerbeak. Then I got to work.

 

It took a while, once I was inside, to find the infected file. I double checked to make sure there weren’t any more just in case, but it seemed like there was only one. An alien file running on his system was just so unexpected to poor, little Lazerbeak that his processor was just letting it run.

Question was, could I just delete a file from what was essentially a robot’s brain?

I tried.

I failed.

Accessing Lazerbeak’s internal workings was sort of like using Linux or an old DOS pc. Or, at least, that’s how the laptop was able to interpret it. I was pretty sure there was probably a lot going on in there I couldn’t mess with. And for good reason. Still, I’d been expecting trouble breaking into the robot, not the virus itself. A little too sure of my own hacking skills I’d assumed that no human-produced code could be too much for me.

Ego now shrunk down to an appropriate size, I started considering other routes around the problem. Maybe I couldn’t edit the file, couldn’t change what it was there to do, but maybe I could at least see _inside_ the file. Seeing exactly what this virus had been programmed to do would certainly help.

This time I was successful. I scrolled through the data before me, looking for weak points, something I could use to halt the virus in its tracks. Reaching the end of the file, I rolled my eyes. The hacker had been good, but they hadn’t been able to resist leaving a signature.

     ;-----------------------------------------------------------  
     ; Autobots rule.  
     ; Decepticons drool.

 I laughed a little at that. The comment itself didn’t sound like Raf, but I was pretty sure now that he had been responsible for hacking Lazerbeak. It bothered me a little that the kid was better than me at programming, but I was also kind of proud of him. He’d done a good job. I was a little sad to have to try and undo it, but my survival depended on it at the moment…

 

Hours later I was still struggling to find a way around Raf’s code. When I’d been studying programming languages at university, I’d been expecting to make browser games and desktop apps, not decrypt viruses. Computer assembly language had been low on my list of learning priorities.

I heard footsteps and looked up. Knock Out was already in the room doing his own thing, so I figured I knew who it was. Excuse on my lips, I got ready to dodge Megatron’s incoming wrath. You can imagine my surprise when a large, black and purple bot stood at the door instead.

For a split second I mistook him for a drone. Then I examined him more closely and spotted some fairly major differences – eg. his height, his markings, and the fact that he looked far more lethal overall.

“Soundwave,” Knock Out said, acknowledging the new arrival.

The black panel on the front of the Decepticon’s helmet flashed up a waveform. It moved in time to what I hoped was only a recording of Megatron’s voice.

“Soundwave, see if our human has removed the virus yet,” the voice said.

Knock Out looked at me expectantly.

“Oh, uh…” I was flustered. None of my prepared excuses came out, just the verbal equivalent of white noise. I swallowed and tried again. “I’ve found the virus in his system, I just need to shut it down.”

Soundwave, who was easily several meters taller than Knock Out (approaching Megatron’s height, really, if you included the ridiculous distance his arms extended past where his shoulders should be), approached the workbench and examined my progress.

Before I could figure out something else to tell him, a tentacle extended from behind him. I leapt back in surprise. Smaller tentacles now extended from the larger one and plugged into both

Lazerbeak and the laptop. Soundwave watched the screen, or seemed to, as it suddenly transformed into a scrolling mass of text.

A few minutes later he unplugged himself, picked up Lazerbeak, and moved back to the centre of the room. The he re-played the last part of Megatron’s command.

“Removed the virus.”

Knock Out shrugged at me as Soundwave left the room. “I’m sure your hard work was much appreciated.”

I was still in shock. “Are you seriously telling me they only needed me to _find_ the virus? I’ve been sitting here for hours trying to get rid of it and Soundwave just goes blip bleep bloop and it’s done!”

I folded my arms and pouted dramatically.

Knock Out laughed at me. “I doubt Soundwave’s ever even said as much as ‘blip bleep bloop’.”

I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling, wondering how my life how my life had changed so much that I was in an alien spaceship taking the piss out of one giant robot while hanging out with another.


	8. Big Bearings

Several weeks went by, full of late night trips into the desert. Esther’s days now consisted of sleeping until it was time for her shift and then hanging out with the Wreckers until the sun came up afterwards. If she didn’t have work, she spent that time with them as well.

There were plenty of occasions during this time that Bulkhead wasn’t available to hang out with them, usually because he had to look after Miko and sneaking away from her was becoming increasingly difficult. Bulkhead had, thankfully, decided that (even as an honorary Wrecker) their shenanigans in the desert were too dangerous for Miko to be involved in.

Well, either way, when he wasn’t there Esther and Wheeljack made their own fun. Sometimes they would just drive, while Jackie told her old stories and she munched on fast food. Sometimes they drove so far they had to be ground bridged home. It all helped to keep her occupied, but it did little to distract her.

 

After a while Wheeljack seemed to notice Esther practicing dodging in and out of his and Bulkhead’s wrestling sessions. He didn’t seem to mind, though. In fact, recently he’d begun teaching her a few tricks that might get her out of trouble.

“See this cable here?” Wheeljack said one day, pointing to somewhere under his leg armour.

Esther craned her head to see.

“Yup.”

“Yank that out and you’ll do some serious damage to any Decepticon that causes you trouble.” He moved his hand away and straightened up. “Stay out of the way, though. I hear Energon burns humans.”

“Ew…” Esther said, but her grin showed how she really felt. “So it’s like the femoral artery in humans.”

“Uh… I guess so. Anyway, time to head home.”

“Aww, really?”

“You know the routine, kiddo.” He still hadn’t stopped calling her that.

Wheeljack transformed and the thought of getting to ride around in a fancy Italian sportscar made her momentarily happier.

 

They always took the trip home at blinding speed; the countryside drifting past them in a blur. This time, however, Wheeljack started to slow as they were halfway home.

“Is that…”

He slowed to a crawl and turned off the road. They bumped over the uneven ground as they inched closer to a group of rocks. Wheeljack’s door opened silently and Esther took her cue to step out. Then he transformed. The two of them peered around the side of the rocks and spotted Megatron and some drones excavating something from a much larger stone structure.

“Oh great… Buckethead. Just the ‘con I’ve been waiting to see.”

Wheeljack threw down a hand in front of her.

“I know you want to get your sister back, but this is Megatron we’re talking about. Plus a bunch of drones and…”

A bulky, blue Decepticon turned around and looked right at them.

“…Breakdown.”

Wheeljack shoved Esther backwards as the other robot came barrelling towards them, letting out a roar as he did so. Megatron turned, and so did the drones. Esther froze as she waited for them to make a move.

“Annihilate them,” Megatron ordered.

_Well then._

The giant silver Decepticon stood back while the group of drones charged towards Esther and Wheeljack. Said Autobot currently seemed to have his hands full with this ‘Breakdown’ guy, but as the new enemies drew closer he swung out a katana and sliced one into pieces.

Esther had already started running. As bits of his comrade hit him in the chest, the next drone in line stumbled backwards and Esther took her chance. She leapt up onto his shin plate while his leg was bent, then she grabbed onto what she hoped was the right cable and pulled as hard as she could.

One thing Esther hadn’t considered when she’d compared this particular cable to an artery… is that the blood inside arteries is usually under a lot of pressure. As soon as the cable disconnected from its socket, energon began flowing out of the Decepticon with force. She flew backwards through the air in a spray of bright, blue liquid.

“Oof,” Esther said, as she hit the ground and scraped along it for several metres.

A huge dust cloud billowed into the air around her and she was enveloped. Splatters of energon rained down around her.

“Pretty…” A drop landed on her arm. And sizzled. “Ow… Ow. OW! Not good!”

Esther leapt to her feet and attempted to remove the substance the only way she knew how – flailing wildly. She tore across the ground screaming. Suddenly, she smacked into something metal, and kinda pointy. She hit the ground again. Esther turned her head slowly upward, pain momentarily forgotten. Red eyes stared back down at her.

“Oops.”

Megatron’s foot moved backwards away from her, then into the air behind him.

_Oh shit, he’s going to kick-_

Thankfully, Wheeljack chose that moment to spear tackle the leader of the Decepticons. They fell down in a pile of robotic limbs and wrestled there for a few moments. Esther took the opportunity to scuttle out of the way.

From a safe distance she watched the fight play out. Wheeljack managed to keep Megatron down for a while but eventually the larger bot kicked Wheeljack clear of him. As he flew through the air Megatron shot him out of the sky.

Wheeljack slammed into the dirt and another dust cloud flew up around them. As the dust settled, Esther watched Megatron stride towards her friend. His gun was loaded and pointed at his chest. He was struggling to get up but Esther could see he wouldn’t make it in time. He had seconds left and she needed to save him.

Going with the first plan that popped into her head, Esther cupped her hands around her mouth and began bellowing across the desert towards them.

“I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling!” she began.

Megatron stopped walking.

“Gotta make you understand!”

He turned.

“NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP! NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN! NEVER GONNA- Uh oh.”

Megatron pointed his gun at her instead.

“Lord Megatron, we have the relic.” A purple Decepticon approached his leader with a strange container in his grasp.

Megatron turned away from her, retracting his weapon. Then he and his drone made their way towards a glowing ground bridge portal.

“Dammit.”

They disappeared inside.

With the immediate threat to her life now gone, the adrenaline started to wear off and Esther could feel her injuries again. She groaned as fiery agony shot through her arm once more. She reached up to her head and turned on her earpiece. Optimus and Fowler had jointly insisted she wear one considering she kept disappearing off with Wheeljack, but she turned it off whenever she didn’t want to talk to them.

“ESTHER!” came the thundering voice of Ratchet.

Suddenly she regretted turning it back on. She groaned again.

“Oh, finally! Where are you two? Wheeljack’s vitals are going crazy.”

“We may or may not have come across a bunch of Decepticons digging something up.”

“And you didn’t think of telling us?” was the response.

“Wreckers don’t call for backup…” Wheeljack wheezed slowly through the com system.

“Are the two of you okay?” It was Optimus this time.

Esther’s head swam and she felt warm all over. Like she was somewhere nice and tropical. Like Jamaica…

“We be okay, Optimus…” she said, suddenly affecting the accent of her newfound Caribbean friends.

“But Megatron… be gone…”

Then she passed out.

 

The next thing Esther knew she was lying in the base on a gurney. She looked blearily around to find Ratchet poking away at a computer, but nobody else. She tried to sit up and winced as her arm flared.

“Easy there,” Ratchet warned her without even looking in her direction. “You have energon burns.”

“Well no shit, Sherlock,” she said slowly, her voice cracking.

Ratchet ignored her, now used to her swearing.

“Where’s Wheeljack?”

The other white robot chose this moment to wander into the room.

“I heal faster than you, kiddo. You’ve been out for days.”

“Really?”

“That’s what happens when you run around in the desert all the time and barely get any sleep.”

That’s when Esther noticed the other presence in the room. June Darby was sitting next to her makeshift bed reading a magazine. She was wearing her scrubs. Esther guessed she must have been checking in on her regularly after work.

“Ready for a rematch, then?” she asked Wheeljack, ignoring June.

“Absolutely not!” cried both June and Ratchet at the same time.

Esther dropped into a sulking slouch in one quick motion. After a few dramatic moments she looked up at Wheeljack pleadingly.

“Listen to your doctors, kiddo,” was all he said before he transformed and headed off down the driveway.

 

By some miracle they managed to keep Esther confined to her bed for a further two days before she’d finally had enough. On the proviso that she not get into any more fights with Decepticons (something insisted on by both Mrs Darby and Optimus Prime himself – the two having become a frightening tag team of late) she was finally allowed to leave her bed and go get some fresh air.

Unfortunately, this took the form of a ‘joy ride’ with Arcee, who was even more of a stickler for the rules than the others. She didn’t even let Esther go out to the desert, just wheeled around downtown Jasper below the speed limit for half an hour before heading to Jack’s school to drive him to work.

Jack climbed onto the motorcycle behind Esther. At the end of the day it didn’t really matter who was in front when the bike could drive itself.

“Hey Esther,” he said awkwardly as they took off. “I see you’re up and about.”

“Finally,” she answered. “If you can really call this ‘up and about’. I hope you’ve got something better planned for while Jack’s at work, Arcee.”

The bike’s mirrors adjusted awkwardly.

“Actually I need you to watch Jack for me during his shift…”

Esther was a second away from slamming her fist down onto the seat in frustration when her scars twinged and she thought better of it. “Aw, come on!” she said instead. “Where are you off to that you can’t babysit him?”

“And why do I need babysat anyway?” Jack asked, still refusing to accept his position in the world.

“It’s none of your business,” was the reply to both of them.

Considering Jack was also missing out on whatever was going on, Esther decided just this once not to argue. Probably something to do with the memory of Megatron’s foot almost launching her across the desert.

 

The shift went by slowly. Esther spent most of it sitting in the restaurant reading a newspaper. Or rather, mostly pretending to read it after she’d exhausted all of the comic pages and couldn’t get any further with the puzzles.

“When will this _end?_ ” she groaned, collapsing forward onto the table.

Luckily, Jack walked out through the staff door that very second.

“Is Arcee back yet?” he asked.

Esther glanced out the window. “Nope.”

Jack scratched the back of his head. “Then how are we going to get home?”

“Beats me,” Esther said, shrugging.

She dumped the newspaper on the table and strode out of the restaurant, Jack followed after her. Esther tried calling Wheeljack, but she couldn’t get through. Who knew what _he_ was up to right now? Probably the same sneaky bullshit as the others.

The sun was setting – in a small town like this the buses wouldn’t be running much longer. Just as she was trying to look up the timetable on her phone a car pulled up beside them. She looked up, expecting it to be one of the other Autobots.

“Where’s your ride, Darby? Finally realise you’re better off with a tricycle?”

Esther stared at him. “Who’s this asshole?” she asked Jack, completely ignoring the guy shouting out of the car window. “Should I deal with him?”

Jack snorted, but then took a sideways glance at her serious expression and immediately began waving his hands at her. “No, no! It’s fine! Let’s just ignore him…”

They walked a bit further down the street while Esther kept looking up the bus timetable. The car followed along beside them while the jerk-off inside it kept shouting abuse at Jack. Just as Esther was about to start rolling up her sleeves and haul him out through the window, a familiar white Lambo pulled over in front of him. He had to slam on the brakes to avoid running into it.

“Wheeljack!” Esther cried. “You came!”

Both doors to the Lamborghini flipped open and Esther jumped inside. Jack followed cautiously. The idiot in the car behind them was still staring dumbstruck at the new arrival. Before he could gather what few wits he did possess and actually react, Wheeljack had sped off down the street well above the speed limit. Then he ran a red light, leaving the bully in the dust.

“Where were you?” Esther asked. “You didn’t answer my calls.”

“Sorry, kid,” Wheeljack answered. “Was just landing. I figured I’d just come find you when I was back in town.”

“So you weren’t out with the other bots?” Esther asked, suspicion in her voice.

Wheeljack’s console screen dimmed a little. “No… why would I be? What are they up to?”

From his tone Esther guessed he’d already worked out he was missing some sort of adventure. This could work in her favour.

“Oh, they’re all going on some super-secret mission. I guess they decided not to invite you…”

“Did Bulkhead go?” Wheeljack sounded hurt. _Good._ It pained her to do this to him, but she was starting to develop a sneaking suspicion as to where the others had gone off to and she wasn’t missing out.

“Yeah…” she said, drawing out the word while she examined her nails like it was nothing. “I guess he didn’t think you have what it takes to go up against Megatron…”

“What a load of scrap!” Wheeljack’s engine roared as he said it.

Esther glanced at the console out of the corner of her eye. “We could always track them down… Sneak up on the big fight.”

The whole time Jack had been watching her from the passenger seat but now that he’d realised where this was going he looked worried. “Hey, maybe that’s not such a good idea…”

“Why?” Wheeljack asked, still sounding incredibly wound up. “You don’t think I can handle it either?”

“No, that’s not what I meant!” Jack frantically tried to reassure him.

“Good,” said Wheeljack. “Because I’ve found Bulkhead’s signal.”

 

Wheeljack headed for the base and Esther got worried that the others might just have gotten back from whatever they were doing. Had she missed all the fun? Had they already rescued Heather without her? Then it turned out his ship was hidden nearby. He drove inside before he kicked them out and transformed.

While Esther settled herself down somewhere to wait and Jack stood awkwardly to one side wondering what he’d gotten himself into this time, or maybe just what Miko would say when she found out he’d gotten to go and she hadn’t, Wheeljack punched in Bulkhead’s co-ordinates. The Jackhammer took off at a slightly alarming speed and launched into the air. In mere minutes they saw a grey speck in the night sky which became the Nemesis.

“There you are…” Wheeljack announced as they came in from above.

Esther bounced forward excitedly, looking through what she could see of the window from floor level as they landed on the roof of the Decepticon warship.

“Round two!” she called, remembering their failed rescue last time.

Jack looked like he was going to ask exactly what she meant by that but he didn’t get the chance. Wheeljack transformed as the back of his ship opened and they both had only seconds to climb in before he was racing towards a decent portion of the Decepticons’ seeker armada.

“Shit…” Esther said, just as Jack said, “Scrap.”

Wheeljack slammed on his handbrake, swinging into the group of unsuspecting robots sideways. When he whipped back around surrounded by falling metal, he forcefully ejected the humans and transformed back into robot mode. Then he pulled out his two katana and got ready for battle.  
Despite the large number of drones, and their flying advantage, he’d cleared them out in no time. Then he scooped up Jack and Esther and started running for the entrance down into the main part of the ship.

Once inside Wheeljack wasted no time on stealth. He tore down corridors slicing through every Decepticon he came across without a second thought. When they finally did find Bulkhead and the others, they ploughed into them unexpectedly from behind and everyone went tumbling down – even Optimus.

The leader of the Autobots was getting surprisingly good at spotting Esther whenever there was trouble. Moments after he had stood up, his head turned downwards and he gave her a disappointed look.

“Esther, you were supposed to be protecting Jack, not sneaking him on board a ship full of Decepticons. And Wheeljack-”

“Optimus, I don’t think we have time for this,” Arcee warned as two squads of drones approached them from either end of the hallway.

Thinking quickly, Esther grabbed Jack and pulled him to the side, which meant the two of them could drop down into a little gutter next to the wall and watch the battle, for the most part, safely. ‘Watch’ was a relative term, however, as with so many Autobots and Decepticons firing weapons in such a confined space it was hard to tell exactly what was going on. This wasn’t a battle she could try and intervene in, even she knew that. If she leapt in now she’d be squished in no time, and it wouldn’t necessarily be by a Decepticon either – better to just stay out of the way until it was done.

Once again, despite having the lesser numbers, the Autobots came out on top and were soon surrounded by a pile of purple scrap metal. Before they could move off, however, two more squads took their place. As they began cutting them down a Decepticon much taller than the drones, but still sporting the same purple and black colours joined the fight.  
Bumblebee beeped something.

“Soundwave!” called Bulkhead. It sounded like a warning. Given the rate the Autobots were smashing their way through the drones, Esther didn’t see how one named robot could give them too much trouble.

“Uh oh,” murmured Jack from next to her.

“What? What’s so bad about this guy?”

“He’s basically Megatron’s right hand man,” Jack explained.

Esther remembered what had happened when Wheeljack went up against the Decepticon leader. Her throat constricted as she remembered watching him crash into the ground after Megatron shot him. She didn’t think she had it in her to perform any rick rolls in front of such a large audience.

The Autobots started cutting through the Decepticons with more force while Optimus went and squared off against Soundwave. He seemed like he could handle it until the other robot whipped out a tentacle and tripped him. Prime hit the ground hard and the vibrations from the crash rattled through Esther’s bones.

Optimus recovered quickly, and the rest of the Autobots had managed to clear out most of the drones anyway. Esther watched Wheeljack slice through two at once and then approach the battle between Optimus and Soundwave. The others lined up beside him, ready for action.

“You are outnumbered, Soundwave,” Optimus warned. He sounded like he was about to give a speech Esther had come to know well the few times she’d seen him fight Decepticons.

_You don’t have to do this. Stop now so we don’t have to kill you. Blah, blah…_

“Or is he?” An effeminate-sounding red robot approached from behind Soundwave with a large number of drones and a huge robot that Esther could only describe as Metal Cthulhu. The thing emitted a high-pitched screech and the tendrils around its face flexed ominously. The red Decepticon was eyeing Esther with a strange expression on his face but she was too busy being horrified by the new monstrosity they’d encountered.

“Ratchet, we need a ground bridge, _now_ ,” Optimus said. “Autobots, fall back!”

Esther didn’t have time to growl her disapproval of this plan before she and Jack were scooped up by various Autobot hands and were bouncing down the hallway in their fists.

“WHAT ABOUT MY SISTER?” she roared once she’d recovered.

“What about my ship!” Wheeljack exclaimed.

“You brought the Jackhammer?” Bulkhead called out.

“I wouldn’t have had to if you’d invited me along,” the white ‘bot replied.

Bulkhead frowned. “We thought you were busy.”

“You know I wouldn’t miss something like this, Bulk-”

The conversation was cut short as they rounded another corner and saw a ground bridge ahead of them.

“No!” Esther shouted. “I am not leaving without my sister!”

Nobody answered her, the group just charged forward as one towards the portal. Her scream of rage lasted until she was back in the base. Ratchet looked around in surprise as the group entered. He was just in time to see Esther pick up a gigantic piece of science equipment, hold it over her head and smash it into the ground.

“Esther, I needed that!” he cried as metal shards sprayed around her.

“Well I need my sister!” she called back, sinking to the ground in defeat.

The Autobots around her were speechless. Between them they all seemed to realise that they had suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of the Decepticons. Esther stared around at them all, looking for answers, but they had none to give her.


	9. Toeing the Line

Night time on the Nemesis, as I’d heard from Knock Out the ship was called, was incredibly boring. My one conversation partner tended to disappear during those hours – presumably to power off for a while. Most of the time I was asleep, too, as I’d spent my waking hours learning as much about the Decepticons and the world of the Cybertronians as I could. This time, however, I was sitting awake, bored out of my brains. 

It’s easy to become complacent when you’ve been in a situation for a while. I’d almost forgotten I was supposed to be getting off this goddamn ship and finding my way home. Staring into the dimly-lit lab, however, my primary mission came back into full focus. 

I scrambled to the side of the table; I’d discovered a while ago that there were holes in the metal leg at just the right intervals for me to climb down. Once I reached the floor, I crept towards the door. Now, here was a problem – the doors were automatic and opened on a sensor. Would they open for me? As soon as I got close enough I found the answer. I hurried out into the hallway before they decided to close on me and crush me to death. 

The hallway was surprisingly empty. As far as I was aware, the Decepticon warship didn’t really shut down at night. Still, nobody seemed to be around, not even a lone Vehicon patrolling the halls. I made my way down a few corridors, wondering if I’d come across that room they were keeping me in when I first arrived. Not that I particularly wanted to go back there, but I knew the bridge was close by. I wouldn’t mind seeing what other important things were in the vicinity. 

 

I wandered around for a while, finding absolutely nothing of interest. I wasn’t sure where I was, but apparently it wasn’t important enough to keep manned.   
Halfway down the next corridor, I heard footsteps. I rushed across the corridor, hoping to hide behind something.

“Not so fast, human,” a voice said. “I see you.”

I turned around and saw a bulky, blue bot looking back at me. Something about the way he stood reminded me of Bulkhead.

“Hey, I know you,” I told him. And I did. I’d seen him come into Knock Out’s lab a few times while I’d been recovering.

“Doesn’t get you a free pass to wander the ship, I’m afraid. Come on.” He held out his palm, low to the ground.

I sighed. Well, at least I knew to head in a different direction next time.

Obediently, I headed over to him and hopped on.

“What’s your name, anyway?” I asked, figuring I might as well get  _ something  _ out of this failed escape attempt.

“Breakdown.”

_ Not a bad name _ .

He took me back into Knock Out’s lab.

“Now stay put,” he instructed, before heading outside. 

Yeah right. There was no  _ way _ I was just going to sit here and play nice. I had to get out of here before the next time Megatron attempted to turn my brain to soup. 

A sudden beep caught my attention. For the first time, I noticed a small pad next to the door. It turned red as Breakdown left.

_ Locked in. _

 

I settled in for the night, deciding I’d probably better get some rest in case Megatron tried to interrogate me again in the morning. I’d only had my eyes closed for a short while before I heard another beep and the sound of the door sliding open. Either Breakdown was back or Knock Out was up for the day. I opened my eyes and turned towards the door.

“Hey, oh-” I said, as I realised I was dead wrong.

Red eyes lit up my vision. I leapt backwards in surprise and ended up falling flat on my back. Tends to happen when you jump from a sitting position.

I tried to scramble back to my feet but Knock Out kept his benches like he kept his finish – clean and smooth. My feet slipped and I ended up on my arse this time. 

“Didn’t think I’d forgotten you, did you?” Megatron hissed as he leant over the table.

I managed only garbled sounds. He had an unfair advantage over me this time – giant robots should  _ not _ be allowed to sneak around in the dark. Not if they didn’t want resident humans to die of a heart attack, anyway.

“Prepare yourself.  _ Now _ .”

I didn’t have to follow his hand to know where he was pointing. It was re-match time.

“But… Knock Out…” I said feebly.

“I am perfectly capable of performing a cortical psychic patch on my own!” Megatron growled.

I could see he was running out of patience. Deciding that definitely dying if he lost his temper was worse than only maybe dying, or having my brain turn to soup, I hopped over to my stand. I didn’t stare him down this time. I couldn’t. I just closed my eyes and got ready for that falling sensation.

 

This time it was different. I don’t know if he really hadn’t made the connection properly or if it was something else entirely, but I could barely see. I only got occasional flashes, bits of my own memories, my feelings about one robot or another, and Megatron – flitting in and out of my vision. It was like I didn’t have a physical body any more either. I wasn’t standing in a room, I felt like I barely existed. I was just my thoughts and emotions. Was Megatron experiencing this too? Or was I the only one with this  _ serious _ handicap?

Megatron’s laughter filled the… everything. It was inside my head, and everywhere else as well.

“You can’t escape from me now, fleshling.”

That word was really starting to bug me. ‘Human’ was bad enough, but was my actual name  _ really _ so hard to pronounce?

“Yeah, great job you did of doing the patch by yourself!” I shouted at him. I had no idea how close or far away he was and I didn’t care. 

“Or perhaps your mind is not quite as strong as you think it is, human!”

I let out an impressively feral growl. “I beat you once, Megatron! I can do it again!”

My spiritual body, or whatever the hell it was, blundered through space – looking for him, searching, finding nothing.

“How does that human phrase go?” hissed a voice from behind me. “What doesn’t kill me… makes me stronger!”

Suddenly his voice was in front of me and something was hitting me hard in the face. I flew backwards. Strange experience, that – being thrown backwards as a disembodied thought – not one I’m anxious to repeat any time soon.

Strange lights flickered in front of me. I felt pain, like the world’s most awful migraine. This time it really  _ was _ like my mind was taking all the damage. What the hell had he done?

I tried to force my thoughts outwards again, take him by surprise and maybe clear some of this fog so I could see. Maybe if I made my presence stronger I could take a physical form. I tried to find something to focus on, find my strength. For some reason, though, images of Esther and the others seemed so far away. They were difficult to reach for, like taking a breath after you’ve been winded. Trying to force it only made me feel more suffocated. If I’d had a body I’d have been on my knees.

“You can’t hope to beat me this time, fleshling,” that nasty voice hissed again.

The fog pulsated around me, flashing from purple to white to grey and then back again. I screamed as that migraine got worse and worse. Was I going to die this time? My only hope was that Knock Out would wake up in time to see what was going on and save me. Despite being a Decepticon it felt like he was the only one I could trust here. 

Why had the Autobots never come for me? Why would nobody rescue me from this hell? I felt desperation begin to close in, felt myself begin to asphyxiate again. It was as though Megatron’s own hand was around my throat, crushing the life from me. 

Almost like when you realise you’re waking up from a dream, I started to feel a connection to my physical body back on the ship, but in the worst possible way. I could hear a terrible beeping from one of the monitors, one I was sure spelled my doom. My body felt weak, like it couldn’t fight much longer, and still all I could see was this blasted fog. 

I tried desperately to cling to the emotions I had used against Megatron before: the feeling of love for my family and friends, my newfound friendship with Knock Out. Streaks of pink began to permeate the fog again, like our conflicting energy last time, but it just wasn’t enough. Megatron’s essence soon swallowed up my emotions again. The innocent pink of love and friendship darkened to an angry red, like blood. It swirled around through the grey and purple clouds. For a moment it seemed to pull them aside and I saw Megatron’s face leering at me out of the darkness.

A strange sensation flooded through me now and I felt my body begin constricting in a completely inappropriate place for the situation at hand. Megatron’s warped version of the thoughts and feelings I’d attempted to fling at him began to seep into my mind, although it didn’t seem to be coming directly from him. I could feel Megatron’s shock as the emotions hit him too. Something in this insane mental minefield was taking a life of its own and affecting us both.

Now I saw flashes that were presumably from  _ his _ mind – scenes of Cybertron, of Optimus, of his time as a gladiator. A sense of burning rage, dominance and virility seemed to permeate each memory. Mixing with my displays of love, now warped into some freakish shadow of what they originally were, the memories became entirely new scenes. I could still only catch flickers of vision but I could feel Megatron’s rising anger and confusion at whatever it was they held. My own body seemed to be both unable to resist the weird new sensations and horrified at what was being forced upon it. 

The push and pull between us stopped as we were both swept away in a wave of pent-up aggression and tension. I could feel Megatron’s need for control, could see the memory of how emasculated he’d felt when I’d beaten him, how he’d plotted revenge in the back of his mind for days while he directed the Decepticon ship. Then came the startling realisation that, despite the species barrier, he did actually see me as a woman. From an inferior race, yes, but still female. 

The longer the raging storm went on, the more I felt my consciousness merging with Megatron’s. We were becoming closer, bonding in a way that would have made my skin crawl if I’d had any in this weird mind-world. Just as we seemed to be far too close for comfort, as the questions of what exactly was happening to us were about to lead us both to conclusions we didn’t want to reach, a pain shot through me. 

 

My eyes shot open and, after I blinked away stars for a few moments, I saw Knock Out looking angrily at Megatron.

“Do you know how dangerous it is to perform a procedure like this without a medical professional on standby?” he growled.

Before he could say anymore, or realise how he’d just spoken to his leader, Megatron launched himself off his berth and charged out of the room. The two of us were left watching the space where he’d been, speechless.

“What happened?” asked Knock Out, his expression softening. “Are you all right?”

I could really see the way his friendship with me was starting to change his attitude. His genuine concern for me was touching, but he way he’d spoken to Megatron had me worried for  _ his _ safety more than mine.

“F-fine…” I stuttered.

“Are you sure?”

I nodded, feeling mute. Eventually I managed to squeeze out a few more words to get him to back off. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I rested on the bench for the rest of the day while Knock Out worked at his computer terminal. Neither of us heard from Megatron all day. I was glad… after that shaking experience I didn’t know what I would do if I had to try and look him in the eye. I’d seen inside Megatron’s head in the worst way. 

Thankfully, Knock Out seemed to have accepted my refusal to talk about the experience, because I had no idea how I could explain it to him if I had to. All I knew was that something had gone horribly wrong, and that the two of us had temporarily become closer than two beings ever had, and maybe ever should.

 

It took me days to shake the constant sensation of Megatron lurking just over my shoulder. I caught myself turning around suddenly in fright, looking for him, whenever I zoned out for too long - and of course I did that frequently now as I tried to come to terms with the experience. When the feeling  _ was _ eventually gone I had to deal with something else entirely: It was strange and unexpected, but I started to feel a sense of loss without that constant presence and found myself with a weird longing to see Megatron again.

Knock Out, who had noticed the way I hadn’t bounced back from the battle the way I normally did, tried frequently to cheer me up. He brought me treats from exotic places when he went out on missions, even tried to offer to take me with him in the vain hope that I might respond, but I spent most of my time sitting quietly with my thoughts.

One day, Knock Out told me that he was going on a mission for Megatron that would take him several days to complete. This shocked me. Normally he was only away for most of the day, and even if he got back late at night he’d still come and say ‘hi’, which meant I rarely had to be on my own for too long. Knowing I would be trapped in the silence of the lab for days, especially since my weird experience with Megatron was still making me feel so awful… I actually begged him not to go.

Knock Out laughed. “You know better than I do that you don’t say ‘no’ to Lord Megatron.”

His words stung a little. I felt as though he blamed  _ me _ for almost dying the other night. Or, at the very least, not being willing to talk to him about it. Didn’t he understand that I couldn’t explain it to him if I couldn’t explain to myself?

After making sure I had enough snacks to last me until he came back, I watched him disappear out of the door. As per new restrictions it was locked behind him, effectively trapping me until he came back or Megatron needed something from me. I wasn’t exactly relying on the latter.

 

Despite my prediction, Megatron appeared a mere five minutes after Knock Out had left. I wondered morbidly if he’d arranged for Knock Out to leave the ship on purpose so that he could have another unsupervised crack at me. Our last encounter had left both of us shaken, but I knew enough about Megatron now to realise that he wasn’t going to quit until he felt he’d achieved victory.

I looked at him and sighed, knowing full well what was coming. He didn’t even say anything. He knew as well as I that this was going to happen one way or the other. I might as well get it over with, then…

I made my way over to my usual spot and steeled myself. I was going to need every ounce of resolve and bravado I could muster. I wasn’t sure beating him was the idea anymore, I just hoped that maybe I could stay alive after admitting defeat. I couldn’t outright surrender, it would be too easy for him… I had to throw the fight.

 

Moments later, I was under. I was stable enough this time to see the giant room again, but Megatron seemed to have won back the advantage because the room dwarfed me. The second he appeared, I ran. He covered the distance to me quickly and scooped me up off of the ground. For added effect I struggled against his cold fingers.

He looked down at me, grinning.

“This time, fleshling, it will be the end of you.”

It could have been the end of me a long time ago if he’d just shot me in Knock Out’s lab, but I didn’t point that out to him. I knew exactly why he kept insisting on a mental re-match… He might have honed his battle skills enough to take on any robot out in the real world, but in his own head he shouldn’t even have to fight. Here, inside his mind, he should be king. 

Megatron was taking back his throne.


	10. Jacked Up

Arcee, Jack and Esther arrived in the KO Burger parking lot mere minutes before Jack’s shift. They’d have been there sooner, but Arcee had had to argue with Esther for about half an hour before she agreed to babysit Jack again. Jack had been arguing for the same amount of time that he didn’t need  _ anyone _ to babysit him.

“Now this time,” said Arcee before she drove off and left them to their time in Monotonyville, “actually  _ stay here _ . It doesn’t count as babysitting if you’re dragging Jack into trouble with you.”

Then she drove off, her hologram flickering to life.

“Still don’t need a babysitter!” Jack called after her.

“Oh, give it up, Jack,” growled Esther before dragging him inside.

Esther was starting to hate whenever Arcee went on missions. It always meant she was on official after school babysitting duty, and it wasn’t even like any of these missions were to rescue Heather either. She was almost ready to give up hope of ever getting her sister back.

 

When Jack’s shift ended, she was still in a foul mood thinking about everything that could be happening to Heather up on the Nemesis. Was she even still alive after two months? As the two of them walked out of the restaurant together, her musings were interrupted by the sudden appearance of Wheeljack.

“Hey, kiddos, get in,” he said, throwing open both doors for them.

Esther needed no convincing, hopping straight into the driver’s seat. Jack, on the other hand, seemed to be remembering the last time he’d gone somewhere with the two of them.

“Come on, Jack!” Esther called. “I can’t watch you if you’re not where I am. Besides, what else would you be doing right now?”

He looked like he was going to object, but then he seemed to think better of it.

“Fine,” he sighed, climbing into the other side.

Wheeljack took off.

“So I picked up a signal today,” he announced as they approached the edge of town.

Jack groaned.

Esther grinned, “Oooh… go on!”

“I think I’ve finally pinned down the Jackhammer’s location.”

Esther didn’t need telling what this meant.

“We’ve found the ship…”

“You guys up for third time lucky?” Wheeljack asked them.

“Of course!” Esther agreed, as Jack shouted, “No way!”

“Optimus would be furious!” he said, when Esther glared at him.

“That’s why we’re going now,” said Wheeljack, “when Prime’s away on another scouting mission with Arcee.”

“How long will they be gone?” Esther asked.

“From what I’ve heard,” he told her, “Starscream’s busy leading them on a wild goose chase around some European forest.”

“Oh, so not long at all, then.”

Wheeljack did the Autobot equivalent of a snort. He’d already told her about how Starscream had basically been a useless, insubordinate pain in Megatron’s ass for eons, but yet until very recently had managed to hold on to the title of second in command.

“We’ll be fine,” he insisted. “We’ll be back before they even know we’re gone. Once we get the Jackhammer back we’ll be home in no time.”

“Let’s do it.” Esther liked the sound of ‘third time lucky’. This time they’d find out where the Cons were hiding her sister, liberate her, and be home before dinner. Piece of cake.

 

This time, Wheeljack proposed a slightly more dangerous plan for getting onto the Nemesis. Since they couldn’t rely on the ship coming near a convenient plateau that they could launch themselves off of again, it might be faster to ground bridge there. Unfortunately, since they were trying to hide their activities from Optimus and the rest of the Autobots, they couldn’t use the ground bridge controls at the base. Instead, they decided to use one belonging to the Decepticons.

Wheeljack had been following the Jackhammer’s signal all day, as it turned out. From what he could tell, it was headed for a Decepticon mining operation to the West. His theory was that the Cons would be ground bridging either personelle or supplies, and that the best way to get onto the ship would be to sneak through the portal between deliveries.

“I have a really bad feeling about this,” said Jack, as they crouched behind a rock, waiting for their moment.

“Get in,” said Wheeljack. “Our window’s coming up soon.”

He transformed back into a Lancia and popped open his doors. Esther climbed in, so did Jack a few seconds later. The second the Cons backs were turned, Wheeljack tore out from behind the rock and into the portal. They were through it before Esther even heard one of the Cons say, “Did you hear that?” and the other reply, “Nope.”

They had made it through unspotted by the vehicons at the mine. The ones on the other side, however, weren’t so lucky. Esther and Jack were ejected shortly after arrival as Wheeljack transformed and drew his swords. He’d sliced through the Decepticon holding the cargo manifest and the two standing guard nearby before any of them knew what hit them. Then the humans followed him out of the cargo bay doors and into the rest of the ship.

Searching the nearby rooms, they found the Jackhammer quickly. It looked like it was missing several important pieces, however, and a giant, red mad scientist-looking guy was bent over it, whistling while he worked.

“My baby!” Wheeljack growled. “What’s he done to my baby?”

“Hey, hey, calm down, buddy,” Jack said, waving his hands at Wheeljack.

The Autobot turned to the two humans. “We’ve found the Jackhammer. If you wanna get your sister, now’s your chance. I’ll distract everyone by ripping Knock Out to pieces. You have until I’m done.”

Esther nodded and took off at a run.

Jack looked quickly from one to the other, as if wondering who it was a worse idea to stay with. Eventually he took off after Esther calling, “Hey! Wait!”

Esther took off through the halls, trying to search as quickly as possible.

 

When her tiny legs were no match for the giant decepticon ship, Esther eventually slowed down to a speed walk, breathing heavily. Jack, who’d somehow managed to catch up to her, breathed a deep sigh of relief. Seconds later, however, she was back on her assault, and he was scampering after her.

The further down the purple metal corridor they got the stomping of other beings became more prevalent. Just as they got close, Jack grabbed hold of Esther and dragged her into the guttering; running quickly and squeezing tightly into a small gap in the wall. 

“Jack what the f-” Esther almost growled but was cut off by Jack slapping a hand over her mouth and putting a finger to his lips. 

He pointed slightly to the hallway they had recently become a part of and she glanced out of their hole in the wall. 

“Oh,” came her muffled whisper from behind his slightly sweaty hand. 

They were squished up against each other, trying to breath as lightly and quietly as possible while they waited for the armada of vehicons to pass through the corridor. Esther tried to get a look out from their hiding spot but was squashed in a too awkward position to get a good view. She was slightly worried about Jack - he seemed to be sweating quite a bit now and was having trouble controlling his breathing. Was he claustrophobic? 

Jack shook his head suddenly and then leaned out past Esther into the corridor.

“They’re gone,” he said.

A second later, Jack shimmied out of the gap in the wall they’d been hiding in and stepped out into the guttering of the hallway. Esther was a step behind him but before they could discuss their next move, they heard the thundering of more footsteps coming their way.

Thinking quickly, Esther grabbed Jack and yanked him back into the gap in the wall. From this position, she was facing into the corridor while Jack was facing the wall behind her. She could just make out sharp, metal boots over Jack’s shoulder.

“It’s Bucket-hat,” she breathed.

A few tense seconds later, Megatron had finally passed them.

“Do you think he’s heading towards the fight or to Heather?” Esther asked as she shielded her younger companion with her body, back exposed to the world. 

“Could be neither. Either way, we can’t stay here any longer if we have any hope of finding your sister and getting out of here alive,” he replied in a whisper. 

“Let’s follow him!” Esther hissed, darting out into the corridor and creeping after Megatron.

She thought she heard Jack let out some sort of strangled cry, but he quickly silenced himself rather than risk Megatron hearing them. 

They followed the gigantic robot for a good hundred metres before they had to hide. A drone had almost crashed into his leader in his frantic run down an adjoining corridor. Luckily this caused enough of a distraction for the two of them to cram themselves into another alcove.

“What is going on on my ship?” Megatron growled at the drone.

“It’s Wheeljack, sir!” he stammered back. “He’s tearing through anyone who tries to get near the cargo bay!”

“Then I believe it’s time I tore through him.”

With the drone leading the bay, Megatron headed back towards the cargo bay.

“Crap!” whispered Esther. “We have to find Heather  _ fast _ !”

“We don’t have time!” said Jack. “Wheeljack’s no match for Megatron. Against a hundred drones, sure, but Megatron is  _ bad news _ , and he’s not that far away. We have to get off the ship, now!”

“BUT WHAT ABOUT MY SISTER?” Esther screamed, starting to get a sense of deja vu. “Every time I come on this fucking ship I get so  _ fucking _ close to finding her and then something ALWAYS goes wrong.”

“Then maybe we should stop running off on vigilante missions and leave it to Optimus. Because there’s another theme going on here and that’s how every time we come on this ship because of you we almost  _ die _ !”

Esther was still staring at Jack in shock when Megatron came back around the corner. With all of their yelling they had missed his approaching footsteps. That or they’d attracted his attention. Either way, Esther once again found herself staring into the eyes of the 30-foot Decepticon.

Steeling herself, Esther did the only thing she thought appropriate at the time.

“Where’s my sister?” she yelled up at him, hands on her hips. “Where are you keeping Heather?”

Megatron seemed taken aback for a second, probably because a 5’3” human had just boldly confronted him. Then his eyes narrowed.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Then he turned and walked away. 

“Why is he leaving? He’s full of shit! Of course he knows where she is!”

“Who cares?” called Jack, grabbing her by the hand and dragging her down the corridor. “Run!”

“He knows something!” 

Esther was hysterical, not paying any attention to anything else other than the look on Megatron’s face. Why hadn’t he killed them? Why had he just walked away when she mentioned Heather?

Jack continued to drag her down the corridor, ignoring her screeching. They ran down corridor after corridor and by the time they reached a familiar part of the ship their tiny lungs were burning. 

“I’m going to kill him,” Esther growled, leaning over her knees puffing. “He’s keeping her here, I know it.”

“I highly doubt you’re capable of taking out a 30ft robot with daddy issues,” Jack replied panting. “If you quit breaking onto the ship every five minutes, Optimus might actually be able to do something about it.”

“He’s doing nothing. I have to get her back, she’s my sister.”

“I know.” Jack nodded, reaching out for her arm. “And we’ll get her back, but right now we have to get off this ship before someone murders us.”

She nodded and he dragged her off by her arm again, headed for where they’d left Wheeljack. Esther knew she’d be feeling it tomorrow, her joints already ached and her muscles burned under the strain of running for her life. They skidded in through the door of the cargo bay and dodged the swinging arm of the red decepticon. 

“Hey, con!” Esther yelled up at the flamboyant, metal beast. “Do you know where my sister is?” 

The con paused and peered down at her. “Sister?” She watched as the wheels literally turned in his head while he tried to figure out who she was talking about. Then a cruel smile spread across his metallic features. “Oh, you mean the little lab rat Lord Megatron gave me to experiment on! I’m afraid she… died in surgery.”

“You LIAR!!” she screamed up at him.

Just as she ran lunging towards the towering figure, Wheeljack reached out and his hand closed around her. She was yanked back towards him before she could do any damage. And she knew how to cause damage now. Wheeljack scooped Jack up off the floor in the same motion. He then got in a few blows on the red Decepticon, enough to let the three of them get into the Jackhammer and off the Nemesis.

Unfortunately, as Esther soon discovered, Megatron’s armada featured more than just the regular Vehicons milling around the place. They’d barely cleared the ship before a flock of winged decepticons tore through the air after them.

“What the hell are those?” she screeched.

“Seekers,” said Wheeljack, concentrating on flying.

Decepticons who could fly. Esther felt like this wasn’t the best time to suddenly learn about their existence. Not when a whole armada of them had decided to blast holes in the ship the scooby gang were trying to escape in. 

The Jackhammer shook each time they were hit. Every blast of energon jolted the two tiny humans about in their seats. Esther had learned to sit down and buckle herself in by now. During a particularly rough blast Jack was thrown from his seat and slid down the back of the ship. 

Esther called out to him as he let out a cry and tumbled away.

“I’m okay,” he called after a moment, finding a place to stabilize himself back there rather than risk climbing back up just yet. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to help you back up here?” Esther called out to him.

He waved her off. “No, it’s fi-”

Another energon blast rocked the Jackhammer. It ripped through the metal wall, leaving a gaping hole in the side. Esther was almost garotted by her seatbelt as the ship’s computers began to scream out a warning. She didn’t need it to know they were in trouble.

The Jackhammer was descending at an alarming rate, plummeting nose first towards the ground. The sirens were starting to make Esther go deaf. She covered her ears while she tried to think. At the same time, she watched Wheeljack diving between the controls, desperately trying to keep the ship in the air; or at least even her out as she fell.

“Tighten your seatbelts, kids,” he said. “It’s going to be a bumpy one.”

_ Shit _ , Esther thought, suddenly remembering Jack.

She turned to the back of the ship and saw him lying near the hold unconscious.

“Jack!” she called.

The kid didn’t answer.

Esther threw off her seatbelt and stumbled through the lurching spacecraft. When she reached Jack, she didn’t bother trying to wake him, just dragged him to the cockpit inch by inch. Halfway there he woke up.

“Argh,” he screamed. “It hurts!”

Paramedic training taking control of her instincts, Esther froze and scanned Jack’s body. One side of his t-shirt had been burned away and an enormous wound was oozing blood and blue liquid. 

_ Shit, _ she thought again.  _ Energon burns. _

“What are you doing back there?” Wheeljack shouted. “We’re going down! Brace for impact!”

Ignoring Jack’s protests, Esther threw him into his seat and buckled him in. She’d just managed to fasten her own belt when the Jackhammer made contact with the ground. They skidded across the dirt, passengers bouncing in their seats. Esther’s stomach wanted to empty itself, but she held onto her lunch with sheer determination. 

Jack wasn’t so lucky. The impact had probably driven the belt into his open wound. Groaning in pain, he threw up all over the floor of the cockpit.

“Eurgh,” said Esther.

When the ship was finally still again, she unfastened her seatbelt, jumped over the vomit and let Jack free of his seat. Then she lay him on a puke-free patch of floor and rummaged in a cupboard for her medical kit. Ratchet had started insisting there be human-friendly medical supplies on-hand at all times given the growing population of Earthlings in the base. This included the Jackhammer, too, apparently.

Esther skimmed through the bag’s contents until she found what she was looking for. Unscrewing the lid from a bottle of white liquid, she upended it over Jack’s ribs. He hissed in pain, but her quick and dirty remedy did its job, neutralising the acidic properties of energon.

Jack began to stir, now that his brain was no longer trying to black out from the pain. His nose wrinkled.

“Is that… milk?” he said.

“Yep,” Esther confirmed. “Ratchet and I recently discovered it has the perfect pH to neutralise energon.”

The rest of Jack’s face screwed up, too. “But… why did you just happen to have some on hand?”

“I’m a big cookie fan,” she said. “Never know when you’ll need a snack break. Plus, like I said, it’s for the energon burns. This bottle was from my medkit.” She surveyed his wounds. “Although, by the looks of this you might need the one from my cookie supply as well.”

Jack struggled to sit up. “Uh, no thanks. I think I can make it back to base like this.”

Wheeljack poked his head in through the hole in the ship. Esther hadn’t even noticed he’d left.

“We won’t be making it back to base any time soon without help,” he announced. “The ship’s totaled, and we are  _ nowhere _ near Jasper.”

“Shit,” said Jack.

Esther didn’t have time to congratulate him on joining the world of grown up language. Her heart was too busy sinking in her chest. Sighing loudly, she turned on her earpiece.

Ratchet was furious. She’d never heard  _ him _ use that kind of language before either.

“Okay, okay- Stop!” she said, trying to get a word in. “I know I messed up, okay? But Jack’s hurt. He needs medical attention, quickly, and I don’t have the supplies here to help him.”

Ratchet let out his trademark sigh. “What’s your location?”

Wheeljack took over the conversation while Esther did what she could to bandage Jack’s wound and dose him up on painkillers. She didn’t have much in her medkit, but it was better than nothing. Shortly after, Optimus arrived, complete with Arcee and Bulkhead. None of them looked happy to see the Jackhammer’s shipwrecked crew.

 

Optimus had put off reprimanding Esther until she’d made sure Jack was in a stable condition in the base. Now, however, she was sitting in a chair at face height, getting the full-frontal experience of his disappointment. If he’d been angry it might have been easier.

“This time you not only risked your own life, but that of a child who was supposed to be under your care,” Optimus said.

Esther was silent. She knew there was nothing she could say. She  _ had _ fucked up. Big time. Not only did she not have Heather, Jack was injured and the Jackhammer was now totaled instead of just in Decepticon hands. They’d come out of this one at a loss, and a lot of it was because she hadn’t been able to hold on to her emotions.

“You leave me with no choice, Esther,” he told her. “As of today, you’re on probation. Until I say otherwise, you are no longer allowed inside this base. You will remain at home and perform your job as normal, and Arcee will watch over you, but you will have no contact with any of the Autobots until your punishment has been lifted.”

He was grounding her. And Arcee was her jailer. The sleek, female bot had been furious with her since they’d returned. It was obvious why - Jack was her partner, and Esther had not only almost handed him to the Decepticons, he’d gotten hurt on the return journey, all while Esther was supposed to have been babysitting him. This was really starting to get to be too much.

Esther answered Optimus with only a nod. She got up off the chair and grabbed her things from around the base. Then she stood waiting near the driveway. Arcee appeared shortly after to take her into exile.

_ I’ll find you soon, Heather, _ she told herself.  _ Just got to wait out the storm for now _ .


	11. Further Down the Rabbit Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When writing this chapter, I realised Heather says 'shit' a lot. I apologise for nothing.

Megatron kept raising me up toward his face. I wasn’t sure what he planned to do - God, I hoped he wasn’t going to eat me - but it was terrifying, nonetheless. As I struggled, I pulled an arm free. Maybe I could transmit just enough information that he’d think he’d won, that he’d drawn it out of me himself.   
This small, I couldn’t reach his face (and I didn’t want to, did I mention his terrifying grin and giant metal teeth?) but I hoped it would be enough just to lay my hand on one of the fingers holding me. I let my fear go, sent it to Megatron. If he was aware of how scared I was, then, again, he might decide that he was winning.

As the emotions hit him, however, I felt others return through the connection I had opened between us. At first, yes, there was glee at my fear. He recalled the sight of me trembling before him in real life and felt satisfied that I had been subjugated. Then, however, he remembered the sight of me unconscious on Knock Out’s workbench. His mind flicked through the times early on - when I had been too exhausted to even move after he interrogated me, when I looked at him as though waiting to die.

Guilt.

It was unmistakable - Megatron was suddenly feeling guilty for causing me injury. It mingled with my fear, which he also felt guilty for. He was in a desperate battle against the urge to comfort me.

It looked like I had done far more damage in our previous battle than I’d thought. This wasn’t coming from Megatron, that I knew. He didn’t have compassion in him, it had been beaten out of him in Kaon. He was ruthless, power-hungry and - for the most part - unstoppable in his quest for universal domination. The guilt had to have come from me somehow, then. I’d somehow managed to… almost humanise him.

I think at that moment Megatron realised the same thing. His fingers squeezed tighter, crushing me. I cried out, tears welling in my eyes. My ribs felt like they were close to snapping. I had to fight back, even just a little. I might be planning to let Megatron win eventually, for the sake of his ego, but I had to make sure I lived through it.

I gathered a ball of emotions to throw at him. I was wary of what happened last time: the odd sensations that took both of us by surprise and frustrated Megatron. Pissing him off more didn’t seem like the best solution, but… what else was I supposed to do?

I let them loose.

Soon sparks danced around us once again and the room faded. I could still feel Megatron’s grip on me, but I couldn’t see him. The fog enveloped us and the sparks of electricity bounced off it, blinding me further. I hoped it was doing the same to Megatron.

“I can still feel you, human,” he hissed, “blinding me won’t save you.”

So it  _ was  _ affecting him too.

Megatron started fighting back, channeling his rage, hate and dominance into the cloud. I tried for love, friendship and sacrifice again. Maybe this would be a good segue into letting slip something about the Autobots. I hoped to hell that I didn’t let slip something too important. Still, hopefully Optimus would forgive me when I mentioned the two months of torture I'd endured.

Once again, our emotions intertwined and corrupted each other. This time, I could see the results for what they were. Love and friendship mixed with hate and dominance to form a twisted version of lust. Rage joined the party and created passion.

While all this was going on I tried desperately to make sure I didn’t take on any of those emotions myself. I had a sneaking suspicion that my newfound confidence in the real world had come from Megatron. With ideas like passion and lust flying around, things could get bloody weird if I wasn’t careful. Especially seeing as the target of it all would be Megatron.

I didn’t even want to  _ think _ about how I would deal with feeling those kinds of things towards him. For starters, he was a freaking giant robot. I knew enough about Cybertronian physiology to know Megatron was semi-biological, but he was still an alien. We were incompatible in hundreds of ways for hundreds of very good reasons.

Worrying about this, however, opened the floodgates. Trying to stop myself thinking about it, made me think of how ridiculous it would be. Thinking about how ridiculous it would be, made me wonder what it would feel like anyway. And then the mistake was made.

The darker emotions, still controlled by Megatron's will to defeat me, sensed their opening and struck. Soon I was bombarded by sensations and almost blacked out. Megatron roared somewhere in my mental darkness. It seemed like he was being attacked, too. I didn't have time to feel out what he was going through, though. I had my own problems to deal with.

Soon, it didn’t matter that I couldn’t make my way out of this quagmire to find Megatron. Soon he was everywhere. Our minds were merging again.

_ Shit. _ This was going so unbelievably, horribly wrong.

I could feel Megatron’s own disgust and horror at what was happening. Underneath that, however, I felt him losing the battle with his own dark emotions. How could he have done this again after what happened last time? Maybe he hadn’t felt the same urges I had, or maybe he was Megatron and didn’t know when to quit…

He held out for as long as he could, we both did, but my resolve slipped first. Megatron was a ruthless leader and a trained warrior. He had determination and strength that I just didn’t have. I went under, and the first thing that floated into my mind was admiration of that strength, of his power. My earlier fear gave way to awe, as it so often does in the human world.

Megatron, I believe, was surprised that I’d given in. I think he was used to fighting Optimus, someone who had fought almost as many battles as he had. He was used to an opponent who could match him blow for blow until one of them had to retreat. His surprise eventually gave way to passion, however, and soon he was snowed under like me.

What followed over the next… God only knows how long, was a torrid flood of emotions and images between the two of us. Our minds merged, separated, and then merged again. I learned more about Megatron in that short space of time than I think Optimus had in their entire rivalry.

When we’d run out of emotions, or maybe when we were just exhausted, we snapped out of it. In the real world, Megatron and I stood beside each other panting and eyeing each other warily. Then, like always, Megatron left without a word.

 

Knock Out returned several days later. During the intervening time Megatron had returned daily. The first time I’d thought he wanted another re-match, to rectify what had happened last time. Not so. The second I was under the exchange started again. He didn’t leave until we were both spent. Then he came back the next day. I had to admit, it was becoming strangely addictive.

As grossed out (and as adamant that sex between us was impossible) as I had been, it wasn’t sex. I was right, sex couldn’t happen. What  _ had _ happened between us was… on a whole other weird level. I was vaguely aware that this was being taken from me, that I couldn’t have said no to Megatron if I’d wanted to. He could have just strapped me down as Knock Out had and forced the machine on me… but I didn’t want to stop.

For those four straight days we were in our own private world and could go for as long as we wanted to. There was never any talking. As soon as one of us spoke then the illusion would be shattered. We’d have to admit what we were doing, and if we did that, we'd have to stop. As soon as Knock Out came back, however, everything changed.

Knock Out was in his lab almost 24/7, as if he either felt guilty for leaving me alone for so long or he’d just missed me. Going without the link now that I was so addicted, however, was killing me inside. He noticed, but I refused to tell him why.

“Come on,” he said eventually. “ _ Something’s _ going on with you, and as I’m technically your jailer I should be able to force it out of you.”

I laughed.

“Sweetie,” I said, “if not even Megatron can force information out of me, what chance do you have?”

The comment seemed to give Knock Out an idea.

“Did he interrogate you again?” he asked. “While I wasn’t here?”

I froze, caught out. Should I tell him or not? It was one thing for Megatron to interrogate me without a medic on standby, it was another to do what we had done. Knock Out would probably flip his lid.

I realised I was blushing.

_ Shit _ …

“Uh, something like that…” was all I could manage to say.

He looked angry for a moment, but when he took in my blush it turned to confusion. Thankfully, he seemed to have no clue what was going on. By the looks of it, robots didn’t blush, so he couldn’t recognise the expression and its implications.

“Well, it’s not like there’s any point trying to reason with him,” Knock Out grumbled. “I’ve told him plenty of times already. As long as it’s not too frequently, the risk of energon poisoning should be minimal.”

Ignoring his blasé reaction to the idea of Megatron torturing me, I latched on to something else. “Wait… energon poisoning?”

“Yes,” said Knock Out. “One of the unfortunate side effects of contact between Cybertronians and humans. You may already know that humans can’t stand contact with energon-” I didn’t, but nodded anyway. “It burns you quite severely. If it enters the bloodstream, you can contract energon poisoning. And dark energon - which our Lord Megatron, in his infinite wisdom, keeps trying to pretend has nothing to do with his return from certain death - doesn’t even require that much. Too much exposure to that kind of energon in any form could poison you.”

I swallowed a gasp.

“That’s why I always insist on being present. I can monitor the radiation levels over the course of the cortical link. That way, if they approach the threshold I can immediately wake both of you, nullifying any risk.”

I’d never really seen this side of Knock Out before. I knew he was a capable doctor - or mechanic, or whatever he technically was to the Decepticons - but it was different hearing him babble about science. It was like being with Ratchet. Or Esther.

_ Shit. _ What was I doing here? I should be trying to escape, not screwing Megatron’s  (literal) brains out every night.

My stomach turned. The thought of leaving made me feel sick all of a sudden. This was really bad. It was like Megatron had left some sort of mark on me. Being addicted to a sexual experience was one thing… but I was starting to worry that even once I did escape, part of Megatron would always be with me, no matter where I went.

Just then, a message came through to Knock Out’s coms. As he answered it, a gleeful smile spread across his face. He began raking around in a closet I happened to know contained his favourite mad scientist tools.

“Something going on?” I asked.

“Lord Megatron has given me a new project to work on,” he said. “I’ll be examining a rather interesting piece of technology.”

He didn’t say any more before he headed out the door, locking me in.

 

Maybe half an hour later, an alarm went off. A global message sounded over the intercom, demanding everyone on the Nemesis get their asses to the cargo bay now. Was it a rescue attempt? Had Team Prime finally come to get me?

I stared at the keypad lock, wondering if there was some way I could get up there to hack into it. If my friends were on the ship trying to rescue me, I had to get to them. I eyed up some shelving near the door. Maybe I could jump from there to the keypad.

Finally I had the bright idea of looking at what was actually on the shelving. Some of Knock Out’s tools were just sitting there. Maybe I could use them to get into the keypad while sitting safely on the shelves.

There was no time to lose, I picked my way across the bench and jumped to a small table nearby. I landed steadily enough. Taking a deep breath to prepare myself, I readied myself for the jump to the shelves. I aimed for one of the lower ones. My head had a narrow miss on the shelf above, but I made it safely.

Now came a harder task - climbing each shelf until I reached the top. There were no convenient holes in the legs of this shelving unit for me to climb up. I had no choice but to lean back slightly, grab the shelf above, and try and pull myself up.

I grabbed hold of the first shelf. Bending my arms suddenly became the most impossible task. My entire bodyweight was hanging off the edge of the shelves. There was nothing to try and stick my feet to either. God, why had I thought this was going to work.

As I scrabbled to pull myself up, I heard the door open next to me.  _ Shit. _

An enormous hand grabbed me around the waist and tossed me onto the workbench. I hit it hard. I lay there unmoving, coughing and spluttering. It was obvious who it was, so escape was a pointless exercise. Either he was going to kill me for trying to escape, or he’d tell me why he was here and we’d get on with it.

A few moments later, when nothing had happened, I looked up to see Megatron setting up the equipment for the patch. Did he not even care that I’d been trying to escape? It seemed like there was only one thing on his mind lately. I suppose it made sense, given there didn’t seem to be any female Decepticons around.

“Where’s Knock Out?” I asked.

“Otherwise occupied.”

I strained my hearing. The alarms had stopped. The ship seemed relatively quiet. Team Prime had probably left without me. I drooped, still watching Megatron out of the corner of my eye.

“Isn’t this a bit dangerous?” I said, not sure if I was referring to getting caught, or to my newly-acquired knowledge of energon poisoning.

His reply was gruff. “Get over here.”

I stayed where I was, watching him.

Megatron turned and lowered his face until it was in front of me. I felt the colour drain from my skin.

“Do you defy me, human?”

I scrambled into action, not wanting him to throw me again. I ran along the bench and leapt across the gaps until I reached my berth. My skin was suddenly alive with energy. I felt like if something touched me now I’d electrocute them on the spot. Was it fear or anticipation?

 

Our regular playing field appeared in front of me, or rather it didn’t. Our encounters these days were always in that foggy minefield of sparks and lightning. You’d think we would have preferred to find some way to make our astral bodies, or whatever they were, work together somehow, but the battle of emotions was far more of an intense rush than physical sensation ever could have been. The worst part was, Megatron was learning how to manipulate the environment  _ very _ quickly.

Nervous anticipation filled me. I could never tell, anymore, if it was my own or if Megatron was already controlling me. Then the nervousness dialed up to terror. He was definitely inside my head.

I pushed back using rage and passion. After all, I assumed it was my fighting spirit that had caused this chemistry between us. I figured that was what he wanted to see. He crushed it in seconds. Something was off.

An image filled my head, and from there it took over the space in front of me. I saw my sister. She was tied up on a table in the bridge, Knock Out stood over her.

“Your resemblance to your sister really is incredible,” Knock Out said, lowering a saw dangerously close to one of her arms. “Are you twins?”

“What are you doing?” I screamed. But of course, they couldn’t hear me.

I turned to find Megatron. He stood to one side, grinning malevolently.  _ What the hell is going on here? _ I thought to myself.

“Tell me what I want to know and you can keep your limbs,” said Knock Out. “It’s really quite a fair deal.”

Was this happening out in the real world right now? It couldn’t be, could it? How could Megatron be able to show me the image when he was shut away in the lab. Unless… unless it had already happened. In which case, no matter what I did, I couldn’t change the outcome of events here.

“What did you do to my sister?” I said quietly, knowing fine he’d hear anyway.

“I might be willing to tell you,” said Megatron. “If you renounce your ties to Optimus Prime.”

I stared at him.

“Join the Decepticons and you can be the one to choose which humans go under the knife.”

My brain was in overdrive, gearing up for a chess battle of epic proportions. What could I learn from what he was saying? If I swore I’d join the Decepticons, and he told me what had happened to my sister, the odds wouldn’t be in his favour if he’d killed her. I’d have my run of the ship at that point (I assumed) and could easily leave to get my revenge.

Which meant…

“She’s still alive,” I said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t make the offer.”

I looked at Megatron’s image of Knock Out and my sister. She looked genuinely afraid. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“In fact,” I went on, “I’d be inclined to believe none of this ever happened at all. Esther would be screaming every swear word she knew if Knock Out had her in a situation like that. She’d never give in, and she’d never cry. Neither of us would.”

I stared him down. Rather than get angry, Megatron’s face remained passive.

“A clever thesis,” he said. “One I’d be happy to disprove.”

I’d been ready for this. Megatron tried to revert back to the emotion-based battlefield. There he could just will me to feel pain instead of having to hit me first. I held onto corporeal form with all my might. His will clashed with mine for a few seconds, but then he let go. Then, while I was still reeling from the sudden lack of opposition, he charged me.

I was close to him in size at the moment, but I stayed low, bent over. When he made to swing at me with his sword I dodged sideways to get behind him. It must have been an obvious move, because before I could even turn around he’d countered me. His sword bit into my back and I went down.

I couldn’t move anymore. It might not have been real, but I was pretty sure he’d severed my spinal cord. My dream body refused to get up. My hands pushed desperately at the floor, raising my torso off the ground, but my legs stayed put. They stretched out on the floor behind me, completely limp.

“I’ve warned you before, fleshling,” said Megatron. “You can never hope to defeat me in combat.”

“And like I said before,” I gasped through the pain. “I’ll never give in. No matter what you do to me.”

“So be it,” he said.

Pain overwhelmed me, filling my mind until it exploded. Then everything went dark.


End file.
